Their business has gone from strength to strength, and the Bennett family are only looking to continue to grow their dairy farm into a sustainable and profitable business. Kate Chapman finds out more.
A milk round, café and events centre have been launched by dairy farmers Tristan and Stef Bennett as a way to find more direct customers - a move they say will keep them in the industry they love.
The couple are the fifth generation of Tristan's family to milk cows at Manor Farm, Lower Wick, near Worcester, where they keep 240 pedigree Holsteins. Located on the city limits the area is regularly flooded by the Rivers Teme and Severn.
They tenant Hayswood Farm, near Malvern too, where they also keep 120 replacement youngstock, 150 beef cows and grow additional forage for winter, giving them a combined acreage of 490 across both farms.
Their Holsteins produce between 5,500 - 6,000 litres of milk daily. Twelve per cent goes to Tristan's uncle Duncan, who makes Bennett's Ice Cream, while the remainder supplies dairy co-operative First Milk.
Stef says the family was forced to rethink its business after the milk price crash in 2014.
"We almost didn't survive, the price just plummeted over the course of a few months," she says. "Our cows are in a two-year cycle, we're dependent on the national price. It's an awful feeling having that risk hanging over you; having no control over what you're selling.
"It's a travesty that people will pay more for spring water than for milk. It was the volatility of the milk price which was our drive to diversify. We wanted to have more control over what we're selling and the pricing, and by having a customer base to buy direct from us we're cutting out the middleman."
The Bennetts launched a milk round in May 2020, spurred on by the pandemic and a demand from customers, who when asked on social media if they would support a local venture, gave an emphatic yes.
They have gone from selling 600 litres week to 2,500 - all pasteurised and bottled by Tristan on site. The round, which roughly covers a seven-mile radius, operates six days a week, with two floats delivering each day, with shifts split between a few drivers.
"We cannot compete with supermarkets on price, but within six months of that Facebook post we were up and running," says Stef, who is mum to three boys, aged between three years and six months old. "Tristan converted a shipping container into a pasteurising room - it's linked to the neighbouring parlour, so three mornings a week the milk comes in direct, is bottled and then goes out on our two 1980s milk floats.
"What goes out on the round is only a tiny proportion of what we're producing, there's a long way to go. It's all about finding customers who care where their food comes from and care about supporting local businesses and farms.
"Our customers include a mix of older generations, for whom it's convenient, they don't have to carry heavy milk in their shopping, while others like having it on the doorstep first thing. Lots of people like the nostalgia of that. Others are buying from us because they want to support a local farm.
‘Unfortunately, there are those who aren't interested in where their food comes from, they just want it cheap. Sadly, they're never going to be our customers."
As well as full fat, semi and skimmed milk, milkshakes have been added to the round, which are proving popular, along with eggs, items from a local bakery and apple and pear fruit juices from another local farm too.
Stef believes the farm's reputation is helping secure customer support, as up until 1995 the Bennett family ran the area's main dairy, buying milk in from other farms, operating 42 milk floats at its peak.
"The business' background has really helped us, as we're not starting from scratch - it's well known, people know the Bennetts' name," she says. "If you lived in Worcester in the 1960s, 70s or 80s, chances are your milk came from us. The dairy closed in 1995 when the supermarkets killed the local market."
In addition to a milk round, the couple decided an events centre and café would be another great asset after holding their own wedding in a home-built yurt on the farm in 2016, on their glamping site, Worcester Glamping. They felt it would also provide another outlet for their own produce, including the beef boxes Tristan sells.
The impetus came after he launched the glamping venture in 2014 installing five bell tents and five homebuilt yurts with the idea to invest any income generated elsewhere on the farm. He made a bigger tent for the couple's own wedding and after hiring it out, they decided to build an events barn and café.
They took out a mortgage for the project, which meant they were ineligible for some grant funding, and they did not want to delay the project, only to find their bids had been unsuccessful.
Bennett's Willow Barn officially opened in July and is already exceeding Stef's expectations. Wedding and party bookings are doing well, while other events have included Father Christmas' grotto, children's festive discos, gift markets, party nights and wreath-making workshops.
Stef says: "We didn't want to postpone the project while we waited for grants. We have gone big - the barn has straw walls with oak beams, it's all brand new but has got that old barn feel.
"We could have started off with a tiny tea-room and built it up, but it made sense as there was nothing else like this around here to serve the big population nearby.
"We have confidence in it as a diversification and as a business. We felt we needed to do something to start selling more milk and beef.
"The events centre and café feed off each other - people coming to events see we have a café and come back to use it, while those using the café see the events space.
"It's been great hosting our first festive events and seeing everyone having a great time.
"We wanted to create a community hub, but all these diversifications and events are about enabling us to keep farming.'
The venue has a core team of eight employees, plus some on zero hours contracts, with Stef overseeing the back office, while Tristan carries on running the farm where they are now turning their attention to the management of the dairy herd to improve efficiencies.
Manor Farm is situated on a flood plain, where only about ten acres do not go underwater, making it unsuitable for a grazing system due to the risk of flooding in the spring.
Some years the cows are out as early as March, while in others it can be as late as May, depending on the water levels and grass. They get a good diet indoors and graze out at night while their dry cows - steers and youngstock - live out over summer, staying out longer.
"If we get flooded, that's it," says Stef. "There's still a risk of flooding in the summer too. We could switch to Friesians, which might be easier to look after and work with, but they have not got the output.
"Because of the land we're on keeping Holsteins makes sense. We can push them full on a really good diet and get a lot of milk out of them. We grow most of our food for the animals - grass, silage, maize and fodder beet - to keep costs down, then we don't have to deal with changing prices.
"Everything we grow is used to feed the cows; we don't sell anything. We get brewers grain - a waste product from human beer system - which helps with sustainability, and we had to buy in silage at the end of last year as it was a bad grass year, which I can't ever remember doing before."
A year-round calving system is currently in place, but Tristan is considering switching to an autumn block, in favour of spring, due to the flood risks.
"We think block calving will be efficient, as everybody will be able to focus on one task at a time," says Stef. "With year-round calving you're doing everything every day. A block system will be different, although we will have to keep some cows milking year-round to ensure we still have milk for the milk round, café and ice-cream.
"We're still researching it; it will take a couple of years to implement if we go for it."
The Bennett's breed their own replacement milkers, using sexed artificial insemination to improve genetics and provide female calves, and a beef sweeper bull.
In the past they have used Montbeliarde and Belgian Blue bulls but moved away from the latter as it was producing large calves.
And, they have recently invested in Hereford and Wagyu bulls, which will also provide meat for the cafe.
Other future plans include exploring more regenerative ways of farming and the introduction of cover crops, while Stef says another project under consideration is an anaerobic digester.
"We looked into the possibility of having one before we decided to go ahead with the café, but it's very expensive and high risk, although we love the idea of being able to generate our own power using something that we have got a lot of," she says.
"Ultimately, we want to keep building on everything that we're doing here - to make sure that we can keep on farming. Tristan's family has been here since 1918, when Robert Bennett first bought the farm.
"As for us, we've both got a huge range of skills away from farming, I was previously a solicitor and Tristan was a civil engineer, before coming back to farm with his dad Christopher.
"It's been a huge achievement to bring the farm back to this point where we can see a bright future and we need to keep building on that now for generation number six."
Farm Profile
* 490 acres split between two sites in Worcestershire
* Farm located on flood plain
* 240-strong pedigree Holstein herd,
* 150 beef and 120 replacement youngstock
* Farm produces 6,000 litres of milk daily
* Milk round launched May 2020
* Willow Barn Events Centre & Café opened July 2021
