farming (Illustration of Regilbury)

The Alvis family’s three farms are located across the beautiful Somerset countryside and home to 1,200 Holstein-Friesian dairy cows, 250 of which are organic.

These herds, grazing freely around the rolling fields beneath the Mendips throughout summer and housed in the winter for warmth, are the powerhouses of high-quality milk for Lye Cross Farm Cheddar cheese.

As well as dairy cows there is a herd of beef cattle supplying top quality meat to our farm shop.

We grow cereal and arable including wheat, barley, oats, oilseed rape and maize, some of which is fed to our own stock and some sold. All this helps us decrease our carbon footprint.

In addition, the farms have areas of land that aren’t quite good enough for producing food so we have planted them with thousands of native trees including oak, field maple and alder, to further help balance our carbon footprint.

The stockmanship for all animals is based on the RSPCA’s Five Freedoms which underpins all we do with our livestock:-

• Freedom from hunger and thirst

• Freedom from discomfort

• Freedom from pain, injury or disease

• Freedom to express normal behaviour

• Freedom from fear and distress

We know from generations of expertise in farming that only contented animals can realise their full potential and give good quality milk and meat.

“Ensuring our milk is produced to the highest standards
whilst maintaining a happy and healthy dairy herd and minimising any impact on the environment is fundamental
to our farming practice and cheese production.”

farm operations director Nick Green

Planet Friendly Farming and Animal Husbandry

Lye Cross Farm is proud to have been accepted as a member of the Soil Association charity which promotes planet-friendly food and farming through education, campaigns and community programmes.

All the organic cheese is produced from free-ranging cattle fed on a 100% Organic diet of clover-rich grass and silage. The cows spend the majority of their time outside but during bad weather they are brought indoors and given appropriate bedding and adequate space.