Royal visit marks new chapter in Cornish dairy production

A ROYAL visit helped celebrate a new chapter in dairy production in Cornwall on Tuesday, October 27.

HRH The Duchess of Gloucester officially opened the new £6million purpose-built cottage cheese production facility at Rodda’s Creamery in Scorrier.

She was welcomed by members of the Rodda family and the Rodda’s team, before touring the new facility and learning about the cottage cheese making process, from milk curd through to packaging.

Her Royal Highness also met members of the team involved in bringing the project to life and sampled products from Rodda’s new cottage cheese range and a cream tea, before unveiling a commemorative plaque to mark the official opening of the new cottage cheese facility.

The new facility has been designed to respond to growing UK demand for cottage cheese as well as expand Rodda’s dairy manufacturing capability, which is best known for its Cornish clotted cream and butter. The site is expected to produce up to 4,000 tonnes of cottage cheese each year and has created 20 skilled jobs.

HRH The Duchess of Gloucester said: “I have been so looking forward to this occasion ever since the request came in from the Lord Lieutenant. It has been so interesting to visit the facility. I have learnt a lot and it has been fascinating to hear why cottage cheese has become so important. I wish the facility well for the future and congratulations to the people involved.”

Nicholas Rodda, managing director of Rodda’s, said: “The new cottage cheese facility is a significant milestone for Rodda’s.

“It’s been a monumental achievement. It was just over 12 months since we started the project. There was a car park there and now we’ve got a fully operational cottage cheese. A huge thank you to everyone who has been a part of it and the part they will play making it the success it will be.

“We decided to invest in cottage cheese because we have a lot of skimmed milk , which is our by-product for making Cornish clotted cream. It will add value to our skimmed milk but more so it will enable us to enter new categories for future growth and development.

“So for every seven litres of cream we get 93 litres of skimmed milk. Cottage cheese is the perfect ingredient we can make out of skimmed milk. Over the last few years there has been a real resurgence of people wanting protein in their diet and cottage cheese is a very natural, clean product that gives people the protein they want for their exercise or if you are dieting that protein helps you loose weight.”