LUDLOW Farmshop is celebrating having won a gold and two silver awards at this year’s Great British Cheese Awards 2019.

Gold went to their Slightly Salted Cultured Butter and the two silvers were awarded to their Shropshire Ewe’s Cheese and Truffle Cheese with No Name.

Winners were announced at the British Cheese Awards Dinner.

The slightly salted butter, Shropshire Ewe’s Cheese, and Truffle Cheese with No Name are just three of the many products that are made by the team at Ludlow Farmshop.

Along with other award-winning cheeses and butters, the Dairy produces yoghurts, puddings and ice cream all made with milk from the Farmshop’s own farm.

This year’s competition attracted just under 900 entries from 122 makers, with 70 judges reviewing 123 classes of cheese. Cheeses entered came from over 54 counties that covered the length and breadth of the UK and Ireland, showing just how vibrant the British Cheese Industry is today.

The British Cheese Awards were started by cheese expert Juliet Harbutt in 1994 to celebrate the renaissance in British cheese making and to raise awareness of the diversity and quality of British artisan cheese. In the first year there were 296 entries from 97 cheesemakers but by 2015 there were nearly 1,000 from 296 Cheesemakers! At the invitation of the committee, Juliet returned to the UK to judge at this year’s awards and presented one of the awards at the dinner.

Judges scored the cheeses on presentation, texture, aroma, flavour and balance. Dependent on the scores that each cheese received, gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded.

Ludlow Farm Shop in Brimfield was for many years known as the Ludlow Food Centre.

It has a focus on locally produced food and drink.

The previous Food Centre was born out of the idea to create a shop in which to sell the array of produce from local farms and land which extend to some 8,000 acres surrounding the shop.

Funding for the Food Centre was provided by the former West Midlands Regional Development Agency.

It is part of the Earl of Plymouth’s Oakly Park Estate which extends to approximately 8,000 acres of Shropshire countryside of which most is used for farming. All of the beef, lamb and Gloucester Old Spot pork comes from the farm along with the milk used to make the cheese and dairy products.

The building allows people to watch food being made by experts from the area.

Right to left: Dawn Jones (Dairy Counter Manager), Tom Humphris (Cheese Maker), Paul Bedford (Cheese Maker) with winning butter and cheeses.