West country manufacturers honoured at Food & Drink Federation Awards
Trowbridge-based apetito and Bruton-based Wyke Farms have been honoured at this year's Food & Drink Federation (FDF) awards.
Wyke Farms, which is the UK’s largest independent and premium cheesemaker, scooped the environmental leadership award, while apetito’s David Lambert won the Food and Drink Engineer of the Year title.
Judges praised the winners as being inspirational and role models to other manufacturers, signposting the way to the future of food production.
apetito provides meals to the health and social care sector and the judges were impressed not only by engineer Lambert's innovative approach to conceptualising and driving forward business critical projects to time and budget, including the replacement of production lines to double operational capacity where he managed the technical process end to end, but also that he has increased production speed by over 6%, making savings of more than £50,000.
Meanwhile, Wyke Farms, following the launch of its flagship Ivy’s Reserve Vintage Cheddar and Farmhouse Butter as the world’s first carbon neutral dairy brand, has led the way across the dairy sector in creating a sustainable working farm.
All electricity and gas are self-sourced from biogas and solar (generated from farm and dairy waste which has no other value), while the working model has the capacity to be scaled up and make a ‘once in a lifetime’ industry change.
Wyke’s commitment to look after the land and community is also reflected in staff retention, with over 33% being employed for more than a decade and 89% remaining with them for more than five years.
Richard Clothier, managing director of Wyke Farms, noted: "Our goal has always been to innovate and lead the way in the dairy sectors as a family-owned business that is highly agile with sustainability enshrined in our core values.
"We work tirelessly to ensure this vision is achieved. The award is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our entire team."
