Our story

How it all began

Back in the 1980's Judy had a part time job to supplement our farm's income working at an Osteopath's clinic in Northallerton. It was here that she first became aware that so many people seemed to have an intolerance to dairy products - especially cheese.

This sparked her interest and she began reading up on the condition. She soon discovered that sheep's milk could make the basis of a delicious alternative for these allergy sufferers.

For over a year she researched different breeds of sheep and experimented with a variety of traditional methods of cheese making. Getting hold of a ready supply of sheeps milk was a problem even for our little cottage industy, so we bought our first flock of Friesland sheep.

Going to market

After years of hard work – trying to run a farm, bring up a young family and late nights spent experimenting and perfecting our recipes – at last we were ready, and nervously launched Shepherds Purse at the Great Yorkshire Show in 1989.

Any doubts we had were soon swept aside with our reception and we went on to be awarded 1st prize at the prestigious Nantwich International Cheese Show that same year.

Within a few years we had racked up dozens of awards and our cheeses reached a wider audience than we ever thought possible, being taken on by specialist delis throughout the country and the likes of Tesco, Waitrose, Morrisons and Sainsburys.

As our business grew (yes making cheese had become a full time business!) we introduced new cheeses using cows milk and even buffalo milk in our quest to make exciting new varieties. After an absence of 30 years we were proud to re-launch blue cheese making back into Yorkshire

It is still a family run business, and now the children have grown up, Justin, Katie and Caroline all play their part - under the watchful eye of Judy.

It's not our ambition to be the biggest cheese maker around, just one of the best. We like to keep things small and traditional - and, after all, when you are making all your cheeses by hand you’ve really got no other choice.