Quality Control
To have a license to sell raw milk we meet the standard three monthly laboratory tests that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) run on our raw milk. These tests are purely for the total viable bacteria count (TVCs) of the sampled milk and a 'coliform' test that detects how clean your milk is. In addition to this we pay to have a sample of our raw milk, raw cream and raw butter tested every week at a laboratory for TVCs, coliforms, presence of pathogens and other cleanliness checks. The cost of these tests do mean that our milk overheads are higher but we feel that it is important to have a weekly analysis of our produce to ensure that we are sending only the best quality products to you.
Our products are taste tested to understand how the flavours alter as the diet of the cows change through the seasons.
Our farm has Organic Certification with The Soil Association, who annually inspect and license our farm as an organic farm. This means we meet the organic standards that cover all aspects of dairy and beef farming production, including animal welfare, land, soil and nutrient management in keeping with sustainable organic principles. This works particularly well as the majority of our farmland has various environmental protections being on the Pevensey Levels Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).
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Our cows are tested for TB annually. We operate a closed herd which means that we breed our calves from our herd and do not bring other cows onto the farm. We are fortunate with the landscape of our farm, in that we have rivers as boundaries in many areas that prevent badgers crossing our land.
We run our business in accordance with our HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) which is a personalised, systematic preventative approach to food safety that has been drawn up with feedback from our local Environmental Health officers. Our HACCP system is used at all stages of the food chain, from milking the cows, preparation processes, cleaning and checks made along the way, right up to packaging and distribution. All of our staff who either milk the cows, bottle the milk, make cream or make butter are all trained in Food Safety and Hygiene to Level 2 standard, this is not a requirement but something that we have chosen to do and evidences how serious we are about producing a good, clean product for our customers.