This month we are celebrating Long Clawson Dairy. We are proud to showcase Long Clawson Stilton in many aspects of our business. It can be found on our menus, in our graze boxes, as a tier on a celebration cheese cake and for retail in The Larder.
A Little history of Long Clawson Stilton
Long Clawson dairy has been making fine British Cheese for over a century, it has earned hundreds of awards and is a favourite for cheese lovers around the world.
The story of Long Clawson Dairy began in 1911 with one of the founding members Thomas Hoe Stevenson. Alongside his two sisters they started producing Stilton Cheese at Mount Pleasant Farm near Melton Mowbray. Expansion was rapid in the first few years, leading to a second dairy to be constructed two miles away at Hose.
In the 1920s milk prices dropped which led to many dairies facing financial ruin and were swallowed up by the dominant united dairies. Long Clawson decided to stay independent – a brave move in desperate times.
The dairy was ordered to stop production of Stilton in 1939, due to the second World war rationings, however it remained in operation by using the latest equipment and techniques to convert to cheddar production – the chosen cheese for rations.
The 1950s saw Stilton cheese came back into fashion. No dinner was complete without a cheeseboard and no cheeseboard was complete without Stilton.
A milestone for the industry was in the 1960s when SCMA achieved legal protection for Stilton Cheese in the form of a certification trademark, ensuring it could only be produced in the three counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire. It remains the only English Cheese to have been given this level of protection.
In 1996 Stilton was awarded protected Designation of Origin Status (PDO) this means Blue Stilton can only be made in the three designated counties to a strictly controlled method. Up until the present-day Long Clawson Dairy continues to thrive. The Dairy continues to be run by farmers and relies on local milk from over 41 farms in Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire including our home farm near Southwell.
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