Dairy Crest’s Davidstow Creamery, home to the Nation’s favourite cheese brand1, Cathedral City, and premium Cornish cheddar brand, Davidstow, is delighted to announce an outstanding year at the 2017 International Cheese Awards (ICA) in Nantwich, Cheshire.

The creamery, located in picturesque North Cornwall, won an impressive 13 awards at this year’s show, including six Golds, two Silvers and two Bronzes. Highlights for Dairy Crest’s consumer brands included Golds for Cathedral City Mature & Mild Cheddars, while Cathedral City Vintage Cheddar and Cathedral City Nibbles Kids’ Snack were awarded Silver and Cathedral City Spreadable Mature a Bronze.

Dairy Crest’s Davidstow brand meanwhile picked up ‘Best Vintage Cheddar’ for its 3 Year Old Vintage Reserve, a bronze in the ‘Past Masters’ class for Davidstow Cornish Crackler and a Gold award in the prestigious Danisco Grand Prix Trophy for its Davidstow Cornish Classic 12 Month Matured Cheddar. The judging panel also awarded the creamery Gold for its bespoke, premium Cornish Cheese products made especially for both Marks & Spencer (Cornish Cruncher) & Waitrose (Cornish Quartz).

Success at the ICA’s follows an award winning year for the company’s Davidstow Creamery which has included ‘Reserve Champion Cheese’ at Great Ecclestone Agricultural Show, ‘Best Cheddar in Show’ at both the Royal Cornwall and Cheshire Shows, and a further sixteen Gold and nine Silver Awards across the season’s shows including Devon County, Royal Bath & West and great Yorkshire. Dairy Crest’s Cathedral City Mature Cheddar was also recently voted Best Mature Cheddar by chef Michel Roux Jr. and his panel of food experts on the Channel 4 show ‘Tried and Tasted: the Ultimate Shopping List’.

Master Cheese Grader, Mark Pitts-Tucker, comments “For our Dairy Crest cheeses to be recognised as world class at the prestigious International Cheese Awards is a great honour. Everyone involved in the cheese making process at Dairy Crest works incredibly hard to ensure that every single piece of cheese we produce meets the exacting standards that we set ourselves and we could not be more pleased or more proud to have won gold across every maturity of Cheddar this year. Whilst the humble block remains our Cheddar heartland, we are excited to see some of our more recent product innovations in Snacking and Cheese Spreads recognised in this year’s awards and we look forward to returning to the ICA’s with our broad portfolio next year to continue our success.”

Dairy Crest continues to support the Nantwich International Cheese Awards with Cathedral City sponsoring the highly-prized Cheese Lovers Trophy for the 23nd consecutive year. A key award at the Show, the trophy winner is chosen by a panel which this year included celebrity judge James Martin.

1IRI Total SIG Grocers & Kantar Discounters & Bargain Stores, Value Sales 52 we 18 Jun 2017.

Notes to the Editor:

The Nantwich International Cheese Awards took place at Dorfold Hall in Nantwich, Cheshire on 25th-26th July 2017.

The largest annual cheese show in the world, this year’s ICA saw all-time record entries of over 5600 cheeses from over 30 countries.