Little Town Dairy Goes from Strength to Strength- August 17th 2023

 

Little Town Dairy Ltd. is a family run business producing a wide range of cultured milk products, including Yogurts, Soured Cream, Crème Fraiche and Buttermilk.

Their story began in the early 1960’s when Matt & Eileen arrived at Little Town Farm, to begin their married life at the helm of the working dairy farm, the proud owners of their herd of 7 cows. In the 1970’s they began bottling their own milk in a small dairy based on the farm and started to supply local shops and restaurants as well as to the doorstep. 

By the 1980’s Eileen was looking at other ways to utilize and market the milk, yogurt was a relatively new concept that she was keen to explore. 

Following a short course, experimentation and trials began on the back of the Aga in the farmhouse kitchen. Over the years this developed further, and the existing dairy was simply too small. 

A purpose-built dairy was established in 1993 and production extended into other cultured milk products including creme fraiche, soured cream, fromage frais and a range of different yogurt lines including Greek Yogurt and Premium ranges. Embracing modern technology and industry accreditations, this facility is constantly evolving, most recently adding a farm shop and tearoom to provide a further outlet for our produce. 

Now, almost 50 years on, the company is still owned and managed by the family and remains within the grounds of the existing farmstead on the edge of The Forest of Bowland. Still using the milk produced on the family farm the company is now proud to serve major wholesale, retail, foodservice and food manufacturing customers throughout the country, continuing to uphold the highest standards of quality and service.

    

Over the years, Riggs Autopack has supplied several depositors to Little Town Dairy to help with their production growth. In 2015, Little Town Dairy purchased a Model 1000 Series 1 Micro Depositor from Riggs Autopack designed to operate with a third-party rotary pot machine. This automatic depositor was supplied to accurately deposit 30gm of fruit compotes into plastic pots - Toffee Sauce, Lemon Curd, Strawberry Jam, Rhubarb Compote. 

A second depositor was supplied in 2016 following product trials at Little Town Dairy. This was a Model 1000 Series 3 bulk depositor, designed to accurately deposit soured cream, crème fraiche and Greek style yoghurt into 1KG, 2.5KG, 5KG, 10KG plastic buckets / jerry cans. This depositor was designed as a direct feed system, taking products from a low-level RJT outlet on a holding tank.

In May 2023, Riggs Autopack supplied a semi-automatic hand capping machine for trials at the dairy. This machine is designed for tightening manually placed lids on jars, bottles and jerry cans. It helps eradicate repetitive strain for operators and Little Town Dairy are using it on their 5 Litre bottles of Buttermilk.

Little Town Dairy and Riggs Autopack have developed a fantastic working relationship over the years. Mark Howlett, Technical Sales Engineer for Riggs Autopack commented, “It’s always a pleasure working the staff at Little Town Dairy, they are a local success story “.

Dawn Heywood, Technical Manager at Little Town Dairy said, “We can always rely on Riggs Autopack to provide a straightforward but efficient solution to any of our filling issues”.