Our Story

In a rush? – Listen here

We had always been just a normal dairy farm, selling normal milk to normal British supermarkets.

Then, on a rainy August day in 2011, we met a hen farmer who changed our lives. It was nothing extraordinary. He was just selling his eggs by his gate, as you do. A rusty old honesty tin with a stone on top. But sometimes it’s the unremarkable things that get you thinking. Why don’t dairy farmers sell their milk this way?

Within a month, our cow-print shed was installed and our first 30 bottles of raw cow’s milk went on sale. A jam jar honesty box with a stone on top. Those 30 bottles sold out within the hour, the final customer guzzling the whole bottle on the spot and requesting a refill. We learnt that people came back to the shed because of the high quality of our milk and the experience of having a personal connection to the farm.

Our first fridge selling Raw Milk from the farm.

The Milkshed

Converting our old milking parlour into our first cheesemaking room.

As sales grew, the honesty box sadly became a dishonesty box. A chance tweet from a friend in Italy introduced us to the concept of milk vending and within weeks we had installed the UK’s first raw milk vending machine. This had a transformative effect on the success of our farm. Seeing our customers enjoying our product had become a true enjoyment for us. It got us thinking once again…

How could we make more of our milk into products that we could sell directly to people who would really and truly enjoy them?

In 2012, we embarked on a research tour of the UK and Europe. We learned from some of the world’s finest cheesemakers and purchased by hand 72 beautiful Montbéliarde milking cows from the Jura region of France. Their milk was highly prized for cheesemaking on the continent.

A year later our first cheese, Baron Bigod, went on sale and has been followed over the years by our raw butter, skyr yoghurt and many more products. Our products can now be found in the finest delis, restaurants and cheese counters in the UK and around the world.

Our first (and slightly embarrassing) Baron Bigod cheese, made as an experiment in our kitchen.

Jonny’s home cheese experiments in the early days.

Bringing our first Montbéliarde cows home from France.

Fen Farm Dairy

We are an innovative 3rd generation family farm, aiming to set the standard for dairy sustainability.

In a few short years, Fen Farm products have taken the UK food scene by storm. Our Baron Bigod cheese has become a beloved menu staple of top chefs and is known to frequently grace the tables of Royalty. Our happy herd of Montbéliarde cows graze the fertile marshland of the Waveney River Valley and we are making their nourishing milk into the finest dairy products. We are excited to introduce you to our wares!

Our ethos

Here at Fen Farm, we believe in the importance of connecting people to the food they eat and the farm from which it came. We also believe it is our responsibility to be excellent stewards of the land we farm and the delicate ecosystems that live here. Our mission is to become carbon negative. We produce more energy than we use from renewable sources on the farm, including our unique cow-poo powered heat exchange system, biomass boiler and solar battery storage.

Jonny and Dulcie Crickmore

Jonny is the third generation of the Crickmore family to farm the land here at Fen Farm. He has been working on the farm since the age of four, when he would sneak out of bed at 3am and follow his Dad to the cowshed to help with the morning jobs. Now there is a little less sneaking involved but no fewer early mornings and wild enthusiasm. In Jonny’s spare time he’s both chairman of the Raw Milk Producers Association and the Specialist Cheesemakers Association, as well as sitting on the board of the Aldeburgh Food & Drink Festival.

Dulcie left behind her day job as a costume designer, to take part in the marketing and business development at Fen Farm Dairy.

Together, Jonny and Dulcie have diversified the original farm with the addition of a pioneering cheese, butter and yoghurt making business. Their focus is on making exceptional artisan products and proving that dairy farming can be part of the solution, not the problem.

Graham and Frances Crickmore

Graham is the second generation of the Crickmore family here on the farm. He has been working on Fen Farm since the age of 8, when it was owned by his uncle, Richard Cook and older sister, Joy. Although Richard and Joy are sadly no longer with us, their hard work and legacy lives on and Graham has dedicated his working life to building a thriving dairy farm. In recent years, Jonny and Graham have together taken the farm operations from strength to strength.

Frances is a wildlife photographer, documenting the intricate ecosystems and ever-changing seasons of the Waveney River Valley. Frances and Graham met in 1969 at the tender age of 18, when he chased her home on her scooter to ask her for a date.