Nettlebed Creamery

Rose Grimond, the founder of Nettlebed Creamery, has an office with a view. The first thing one can’t help but notice when visiting her at the Creamery buildings, which are just off Nettlebed High Street, is the stunning countryside valley vista across to Stoke Row.

It’s from here that Rose runs her award-winning business when she isn’t coping with the demands of family life – she’s the mother of three children whose ages range from 6 to 11. And the business is growing fast.

The Creamery’s latest expansion is into hospitality: in March 2021 Rose opened The Cheese Shed, an old hay barn converted into a farm shop and café which sells delicious coffee made with the Creamery’s own milk, kefir smoothies, and premium toasted sandwiches made with a blend of the Creamery’s own award-winning cheeses.

The Cheese Shed has been a huge hit, and quite a few famous faces have been spotted among the crowds of walkers and cyclists who flock to enjoy the toasties. Hollywood actor Tom Hanks paid a visit in March, while Dame Mary Berry and actor Jeremy Irons who both live in the Henley area have also stopped by.

Rose has acting blood in her genes too: she’s the granddaughter of the actress Dame Celia Johnson and her husband Peter Fleming, who started the dairy from which the Creamery sources its milk in 1950.

The middle daughter of three sisters, Rose was brought up predominantly in West London, but made regular visits to the family farm in Nettlebed at weekends. She studied English at Balliol College, Oxford after attending St Mary’s School Calne in Wiltshire.

After university she spent a year at drama school in New York, before returning to London and trying her luck as an actress for several years, working as an editorial assistant at The Economist in her spare time.

Shortly after meeting her husband, the novelist James Scudamore, Rose decided to pursue a different passion in her working life, and embarked on a career in food. Her first business was called Orkney Rose and it imported high-end produce from the Orkney Islands, where Rose’s paternal grandfather Jo Grimond had been the MP for much of his working life. Rose credits her years working the Orkney Rose stall at Borough Market with developing and refining her love of cheese.

Now in her 40s, Rose founded Nettlebed Creamery in 2015. Three different varieties of cheese are made on the site, all of which have won awards. The business has a particular focus on the importance of local produce, and practise what they preach given that the dairy is only a couple of miles away, at Bix.

A key member of the Creamery team is Patrick Heathcoat-Amory.  Patrick has had a lifelong interest in farming, food and fermentation.  Growing up in Devon on a diet of raw milk has evidently given him a finely tuned sense for the unleashed potential in every litre the cows produce. Patrick was also a consultant Environmental Scientist for 14 years and is clearly putting these skills to use along with the team. 

Rose stresses that the Creamery is a team effort and speaks very highly of her team. I put it to her that in light of the huge number of awards the Creamery team has won, perhaps cheese competitions are easy to win? “Not if you consider that 3816 cheeses might be competing against you”, laughs Rose.

Nettlebed Creamery are indeed prolific winners, 2019 “Best Organic”, 2019, “three-stars” at the Great Taste Awards and “Super-Gold” at the World Cheese Awards.

The Creamery’s semi-hard cheese, Witheridge in Hay (another local name) won internationally amidst 12,772 cheeses from over 100 countries. The judges said “the cheese had clearly been well-made and had a “complex flavour and really good taste” and was “moreish”. Rightly proud, Rose, was quoted as saying “This was a huge achievement.  We believe we are the first cheese-makers in the UK to age cheese in hay!”

Rose, who bears a resemblance to her cousin Helena Bonham Carter and who is also immediately likeable, still, like most women has to juggle the busy morning household as well as running an award winning business, says that organisation is absolutely key. 

I enquire whether husband James (they met at a music festival in 2004 and married in 2007) has a place in the office, which is now buzzing full of people and it is not yet 8.45 am. He did, but not now,  James now writes from home across the valley in the company of the family cat, the tortoise, two dogs and a lot of chickens. 

Several more people arrive and I notice the HMP Huntercombe prison uniform and Rose explains that she is a firm believer in helping others and offers a work-experience type apprenticeship for those perhaps in less fortunate circumstances.

Having previously worked in the criminal justice system, Rose states that “it can have a significant impact on their rehabilitation.  All the applicants are risk-assessed and they have proved to be a valuable additions to our team here.”

So what for the future and where can one obtain this renowned cheese? Will we be seeing a Daylesford type establishment forming in Nettlebed as seen in the Cotswolds by the well-known “JCB” Bamford family?  “Never, say never” says Rose and she adds with a smile “Watch this space!”

Nettlebed Creamery has a comprehensive website, or you can call in  at The Cheese Shed or one can find the cheese locally all over Oxfordshire and nationally and even in Barbados!

www.nettlebedcreamery.com