Milk supply
 To ensure the highest quality assurance with full traceability, all milk producers working in partnership with us are carefully selected.
Milk is collected daily by our tankers from 20 local farms, all within a 20 km radius of Dew Lay site. Each day 35 000 litres of milk are collected and stored in 1 of 4 silos which can hold
190 000 litres of milk in total.
Pasteurisation
 Milk is pumped from the silos to the Pasteuriser, where it is heated to 73 degrees C for 25 seconds killing any harmful micro-organisms.
The milk is then cooled through a heat exchanger, to get it down to 32 degrees C, before being pumped into the cheese vats.
Add starter and rennet
The milk is poured into3 vats which each hold 13,000 litres. Here the starter culture is added to help start the ripening of the milk and the formation of the curds and whey. If the cheese is a coloured variety, such as Red Leicester then a natural colouring is also added at this stage. Once the curd has ripened, rennet is added to help coagulation.
Removing the whey
 The cheese maker then checks the curd has a firm set before starting to cut the curd using the vats mechanical knives to separate the curds and whey. The turning of the curds is done by hand. After each turn the acidity is tested by the cheese maker to check that it is increasing at a steady rate. When the correct acidity is reached, the curd is milled and salted or in the case of Creamy Lancashire stored over night then blended with the next batch then milled and salted.
Moulding and pressing
The milled curd is then weighed and packed into blocks. The filled moulds are placed into a press for up to 24 hours this also helps remove any remaining whey held by the curd.
Packaging
 The moulds are taken out of the press the following morning and the cheese is knocked out of the mould.
Then, cheeses are placed in a shrink bag and vacuum packed
Storage
 Packed cheese is boxed, palletised and put into cold storage, where it is allowed to mature at a constant temperature of 8 degrees C.
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