about food
I take a trip to Bungay to chew the cud with Jonny Crickmore of Fen Farm Dairy and find out how they went from selling a few bottles of raw milk from the garden shed to being one of the UK’s leading artisan dairy producers whose cheese graces the tables of Royalty. The Crickmore family has been farming the 1000 acres along the Waveney Valley for three generations, and Jonny grew up following in the footsteps of his dad, Graham, donning his wellingtons from the age of four to help with the early morning milking. Father and son now work shoulder to shoulder and, along with Jonny’s wife Dulcie, have spent the last 10 years diversifying the business so that it now includes cheese, butter and yoghurt production, and establishing Fen Farm as a brand that sets the standard for sustainability within the dairy industry.
The shed has now been refashioned into a self-service kiosk with high-tech vending machines that dispense litres of creamy raw milk, boxed butter and cheeses, live yoghurt, fresh bread from the local Pennybun Bakery, and even a cappuccino to take away! “This was our first eureka moment. In 2011 we decided to try selling bottles of milk from the roadside and were amazed at how popular it was. We went from selling 30 litres a day to over 200, so I imported a milk vending machine from Italy to help streamline the process. It was the first of its type in the UK and caused quite a stir on the food scene.” 49
