the power of partnership

We talk a lot about our grandmother Ivy, and for good reason. The Cheddar and butter we make isn’t just named after her, it’s still made to the recipe she perfected almost a century ago. Beyond all we owe her for that, she also taught us the principles that we work with today, of caring for the land and giving back at least as much as we take, of the importance of detail and care in our craft, and of hard work and honesty.

Whether as family or as colleagues at the dairy she set up, we remember Ivy as a truly formidable woman: cook, food scientist, manager of people and of her own business, hostess, mother and grandmother. But we also know that a vital part of her strength and success came from her great partnership with her husband Tom. He matched her for hard work and dedication, was every bit as ambitious for his family and their work, and he was just as committed to doing everything the right way.

Ivy and Tom’s marriage was a powerful combination. They had much in common, including both growing up in farming families in Somerset, but also, in the words of their son John, “They were different enough to make a good partnership.” While Tom took care of the Maths and figures, for example, Ivy was responsible for writing letters and communications. And while Tom had made up his mind almost as soon as he could walk that he would be a farmer, Ivy stayed at school: “He had a lot of raw skills and when Ivy came along she refined him a bit,” says John. 

When the two of them decided to turn their hand to Cheddar-making, using the milk from Tom’s ever-expanding herd, their combined skills and support of each other proved vital. They were both determined, active, driven characters, which meant as a pair they were able to put their hand to almost anything and find their effectiveness was multiplied. “She’d find a positive in everything, which helped her an awful lot,” remembers John. “And the Cheddar evolved because they were both determined to get it right. They wanted to make it the best.”

While the Cheddar and butter were always Ivy’s domain, Tom was there from the start, in the dairy with her at 6am to turn the cheese out of the moulds before he went to the fields. Tom encouraged her to spend the time necessary to make her Cheddar truly outstanding, to learn new skills from technical college and to apply her own cooking experience to the recipe. 

And the two were united in the way they saw their place in the world. This extended to the importance of family, and of passing on their legacy to their children and grandchildren. Beyond that, they were a strong part of the community, which they supported in many ways, especially during the challenges of wartime.

Above all, it was in the way they cared about doing things properly, whether that was making their Cheddar and butter without cutting corners, or in how they treated the countryside that gave them the raw materials to make it. Together, they gave us the principles we still follow today, a century on, when Ivy’s Reserve has grown from the work of two people to an award-winning cheese known around the world.