Meet the small food producers - Court Lodge Organics
Court Lodge Organics is owned and run by Marian and David Harding, who are very involved with a group of local farmers across the Pevensey Levels seeking to undertake nature-friendly farming practices, the Pevensey Levels Farm Cluster (David is Chair). I interviewed them about being business members a few years ago.
But for this visit, I was there to meet some of the team - Sally, Carolyn and Archie - and find out a bit more about the yogurt production side of things.
Yogurt production takes place all year round, but for a great deal of the year the herd grazes on the Pevensey Levels. Their milk goes into producing traditional yogurts in pots, live natural pouring yogurt, as well as drinking yogurt in apple and ginger, strawberry, blackcurrant and Seville orange flavours (all flavouring comes from organic fruit purees). The team also make Labneh, a soft Middle Eastern cheese made from strained yogurt.
I met Sally and Carolyn (who make the yogurt) and Archie (who manages the herd). They introduced me to some of the 'Ladies in Waiting' in the barn, the heavily pregnant cows who are waiting to give birth. The cows, Archie explained, are very characterful, and there is, apparently, a hierarchy in the herd.
The taste of their yogurt, Sally told me, is seasonal. The flavour changes slightly at different times of year, the stage of lactation of the cows, whether they are grazing on the Pevensey Levels (which they do in summer) and even sometimes due to the weather.
Sally laughingly referred to herself and colleagues Carolyn and Charlotte, who isn't working the day I visit, as 'The Three Yogurteers' and said one of the many things that singles out Court Lodge Organics as being different as an employer is how ethically the staff team is treated. "They are very good employers in a world where many are not." The working day starts around 4.30-5am, and what they enjoy most about their work is feeling part of the whole process, as well as being part of such a great team. Carolyn's husband delivers the yogurt to local shops. "What many people don't realise about work on a farm is that, if there's a problem, you have to deal with it. You need to be adaptable."
Milk is taken from the cows, pasteurised, then cooled down enough to put the live yogurt culture in. There are no additives apart from organic flavourings. The Labneh sometimes has herbs added. I ask Sally how they transfer the yogurt into the bottles. "With jugs! We are the ladies with jugs" she laughed. They keep the dairy meticulously clean by hand. No labour-saving devices here, but they prefer it this way.
They are closely involved with the Pevensey Cheese project which, like the yogurt, only uses their milk. The other milk is collected by Organic Herd, a farmer-owned cooperative (originally known as the Organic Milk Suppliers cooperative) which supplies some organic cheesemakers as well as making its own brand of cheese and butter. Their friends at High Weald Dairy (who also distribute some of Court Lodge's yogurt) are one of their customers.
Carolyn, who has worked here 18 years, said "Passion flows into what we produce. We are all very in tune with the countryside." Carolyn is from a farming family who farm extensively and operate on a SSSI (her 82 year old father is still farming), and she loves sitting down to Sunday lunch and being able to think that the meat and the veg they are eating all comes from local producers, their farm and their garden.
The biggest challenges for the business, they told me, are rising costs across the business. And the hardest part of the work for the team is that, in winter, the yogurt room is a very cold, damp environment!
More about Court Lodge Organics
The Court Lodge Organics herd of cows that graze on the Pevensey Levels is called Troliloes. The name comes from a local stream at Bodle Street, where the farm's first ever herd was located. Many cows are named after unusual moths, such as Peach-blossom, Mullein, Quaker, Flame, Satin and Emerald because David loves moths so much!