British Cheesemaking: The Next Generation

A Father’s Legacy

There’s a moment in every family business when the tools are passed, not always with ceremony, but with a quiet knowing. In the world of cheesemaking, it’s not just skills or secrets that are handed down, but a way of life. The next generation of makers aren’t merely repeating their parents’ footsteps; they’re walking beside them, with memory as their compass and the future in their hands.

As Father’s Day approaches, it’s natural to reflect on the quiet, everyday moments that shape who we are, especially those passed down between parent and child. In the world of British artisan cheese, many of today’s most respected makers grew up not just on farms, but in the company of their fathers: watching, learning, helping and eventually taking up the mantle. Their stories are a tribute not just to the craft of cheesemaking, but to the deep-rooted values: patience, pride, and perseverance that fathers often pass down without a word.

Father’s Day Cheeseboard

We asked five British cheesemakers, still walking in their Father’s footsteps, for their favourite memories growing up. Taking one cheese from their ranges, we have created a special Father’s Day five-cheese cheeseboard for you to share with your loved ones this June.

Meet The Cheesemakers

The Call of the Dairy

Rob’s earliest memory of cheesemaking is a quiet, domestic ritual: his mum and dad in their white cheese caps, heading off to the dairy while he was barely tall enough to look out the window. “I was just two years old,” he remembers, but even then, the rhythm of cheesemaking was already part of the family’s daily life.

By 1996, that quiet rhythm had become a family conversation. Around the kitchen table, the Teifi family sampled early batches of what would become Celtic Promise. It was Rob’s first introduction to the pungent magic of washed rind cheese: “gamey, exciting, puzzling.” A decision regarding their first cheese loomed: Gouda from his parents’ native Holland or Caerphilly? The family chose Caerphilly, a cheese rooted in Welsh tradition, and a fitting start for what would become one of the UK’s most celebrated artisan cheese dairies.

Rob learned more than just technique from his father. “Excellence mattered,” he says, not as a slogan but as a standard, applied to cheese, yes, but also to how you run a business, how you treat people, how you build something that lasts. Today, Caws Teifi continues to grow, expanding its team and reach; but the soul of the place remains unchanged: raw milk cheese, lovingly made, proudly Welsh.

Frog Wellies and Sunday Tastings

For Annie and Will Clarke, the memories of cheesemaking are flecked with laughter and a bit of lard. “We’d go into the dairy and watch Mum and Dad make the cheese,” Annie recalls, “but we didn’t have white wellies, we had frog wellies.” Their childhood contribution? Doodling their names alongside smiley faces in the lard of the clothbound Red Leicester. A moment of mischief that became a memory stitched into the rind.

Will remembers the first time their cheeses hit the farmers’ markets: bitter winter mornings in ski suits, their mum shoving hot water bottles down her coat to keep warm.

There were visits from cheesemongers and affineurs, writers and makers, especially when the Clarkes hosted the SCA annual farm visit. But perhaps the most vivid early memory is a blind taste test at their auntie’s house: the family’s own Sparkenhoe Red Leicester versus a standard block version. “I picked the block,” Will says now, cringing at the recollection.

Today, there’s no mistaking his dedication. Since returning from Harper Adams University in 2016, Will has introduced regenerative farming to the land and launched two raw milk blue cheeses: Sparkenhoe Blue and Sparkenhoe Shropshire Blue. Annie, meanwhile, teamed up with their mum Jo to transform a wagon hovel into a charming tearoom and cheese shop. Opened in 2014, it started as a weekend venture and has since flourished, just like the dairy.

Curds, Characters, and Change

Robin’s childhood memories unfold from a different angle; through a viewing window in his father’s office, watching curds and whey swirl in two great vats below. “I was so young,” he says, “but it made me feel very at home with cheesemaking.”

For Robin, the people were as memorable as the process. Jean, who looked after him. Mario, the cheesemaker who worked with his grandfather. Some of those faces remained familiar for decades, until only recently retiring. It’s a rare kind of continuity.

Since stepping into leadership, Robin has introduced quiet but meaningful changes: open offices to foster transparency, new recipes like the soft blue Beauvale to reflect evolving tastes, and a sharper focus on modernising tradition without losing its essence. Cropwell Bishop remains a family-run bastion of Blue Stilton PDO, but under Robin, it’s also a place of reinvention.

From Fields to Fromage

Selina Cairns remembers lambing season more vividly than her first cheese. “I was kept out of the cheese rooms,” she laughs, “until I was old enough to help with packing.” But being out on the farm with her father, helping with animals, soaking in the land, that was her first education.

Errington Cheese, long known for its raw sheep’s milk cheeses, shifted course in 2019 when goats arrived at the farm. The result? Two new stars: Elrick Log and Blackmount, which now make up half the dairy’s production.

Selina’s path into the dairy wasn’t preordained. But when she did step in, she brought a quiet confidence and a deep respect for the farm’s roots. Her father built a name for Scottish artisan cheese. She’s built on it, expanding the herd, refining the craft, and writing the next chapter.

Cheddar, Oak Panels, and a Little Brother’s Label

For Hugh Padfield, cheesemaking began with curiosity and a tiny vat. “I was twelve,” he says, recalling the sight of his parents toiling over just 70 litres of milk. The cheese was dry, the future uncertain. But they kept going. And soon, the family settled on a historic Somerset original, the Bath Soft Cheese.

Hugh’s memories are full of warmth and whimsy; during the summer holidays he toiled on the farm with his brothers, helping with the harvest, milking and fencing.  His younger brother hand-drawing the now-iconic cheese label, a teenage trip to Harrods to pitch their cheese in an oak-panelled tasting room. “That felt very special,” he says. You can tell it still does.

When Hugh officially took the reins in 2012, the cheese side of the farm was still “a hobby.” No longer. Today, 90% of the farm’s milk becomes cheese. They’ve built a new dairy, a shop, and a reputation for excellence; winning at the World Cheese Awards and beyond. Still, the land, the livestock, and the family remain central. “Everything we do,” Hugh says, “enhances and improves the farm, which is our home.” It’s hard not to think his great-grandmother, who once made cheddar here, would be proud.

Cultures and Curds to Families and Flavours

These stories, stitched together by time and tradition, remind us that cheesemaking is more than just transforming milk, it’s about transformation, full stop. What starts as cultures and curds becomes something enduring: flavour, family, memory.

From Welsh Caerphilly to Scottish goats’ cheese, Somerset’s soft wheels to Nottinghamshire’s Stilton and the bright, bold clothbound cheeses of Leicestershire, one thread binds them all; the fathers who started it, and the children who carry it on. Not just to preserve, but to evolve. Not just to honour, but to create.

And somewhere, even now, another child is peering through a dairy window, curious and captivated, watching the next chapter begin.