Framlingham ice cream maker Suffolk Meadow plans to expand

Based at a creamery at Walpole, near Halesworth, Katherine is taking what began as a sideline for the family's dairy farm operation to new heights.

Her parents - David and Colette Strachan - kept a prize-winning pedigree Holstein and Jersey herd at Rendham, near Framlingham, for many years and she and brother James grew up as farmers and joined the family business.

The Strachans also ran a dairy factory - called Marybelle - at Walpole. Around 2014 they sold it to a family-run Belgian company called Pur Natur, but it later decided to close down its UK arm and sadly, the dairy closed.

Plummeting milk prices were making it harder and harder for Suffolk's much-diminished dairy sector and the Strachans eventually decided to pull the plug in 2015/16 and sold their beloved herd.

Katherine is very proud of very dairying roots. Some of the descendants of the family's prized Rendham Holsteins and Rapid Bay Jerseys can still be found in progeny lines of existing pure dairy herds, says Katherine.

But the family retained one of its much-celebrated sidelines - an ice cream making operation called Suffolk Meadow.

It was launched in 1989 by David and Colette. Colette used traditional ice cream recipes inspired by her Belgian grandmother, whose family ran a popular bakery and ice cream shop in Belgium.

It was a way of using up surplus milk which the family couldn't sell in the 1980s due to milk quotas.

James designed a new creamery to house the operation back in 2016 - close to the old Marybelle site, which is owned by farmers John and Lucy Winter of Old Hall Farm, Walpole.

The reins were handed over to James and Katherine some years ago, but recently, the siblings decided to split the business to give each a focus.

James - who still honours his dairying roots as a head steward in the cattle rings at the Suffolk Show - now pursues his own Birds and Bees campsite operation and other farming activities at Rendham.

Meanwhile, Katherine now has sole control of Suffolk Meadow - although she still looks to James for advice and support.

"In March last year I took it on as owner. We still work together - he helps me on a lot of my finance. We have different skill sets - I  still rely on him," she says.

She is also still supported by her parents. David makes the ice cream deliveries and Colette still helps with recipes.

Her most popular flavours are vanilla, chocolate and strawberry - and rum & raison ice cream. Her sorbets are growing in popularity and she also makes a coconut-milk ice cream for vegans.

Katherine has sought advice from the Broadland Food Innovation Centre, which is helping food and drink businesses in Norfolk and Suffolk to innovate and grow.

Following the closure of the Walpole plant, she sources ultra-fresh milk for her ice cream from the daughter of another Suffolk dairying dynasty - Lindsay Miller of ES Burroughs & Sons at Beccles - who still runs a dairy herd. Lindsay's father - David Burroughs - is also a former schoolmate of David Strachan.

As they pasteurise but don't homogenise the milk, it makes for a high quality ingredient, she explains. "It's just lovely - it's not as processed."  

Ice cream sales this year have been very strong, says Katherine.

They were boosted at the start of the year by the sale of Criterion Ices - a long-standing family ice cream maker at Thurston, near Bury St Edmunds - to Leeds-based Northern Bloc, which moved production out of the county, she explains. 

"All of a sudden I got all these new sales. We continue just to make a really good product and it sticks in people's minds. I don't change my recipes and I don't cheapen - I just believe we are a quality product," she says.

So far this year, the business - which employs two other workers - has produced 20,000 litres of ice cream. "That's a lot of ice cream," says Katherine.

About four fifths of her customer base is pubs and restaurants and the rest goes to retail. Being small has its advantages, she says, and has meant she has been able to adapt.

She spoke to the Broadland Food Innovation Centre in January and they have been very helpful, she says. She has been offered advice by Nick Smith which has been very useful and Celia Holt has looked at her full production process to see what improvements can be made.

"It was really good because just having someone to sit and talk to about what I thought I needed was really helpful. When you are running a small business on your own it's a little bit lonely," she said. "We were able to look at five areas I could potentially have some help with."

They decided to focus on production efficiency - but for Katherine it was important not to compromise her artisan values.

"My main problem at the moment is freezer storage so that's something I have to look at," she says.

"I don't want a massive big business - I just want to do what I do really well," she adds.

“It can feel very lonely running your own business and you can feel very stuck.

"Discovering the support available through the Broadland Food Innovation Centre project has been really valuable and it’s a amazing to discover that there is support and advice out there for small businesses like Suffolk Meadow.

"The programme of events and workshops run by the Innovation Cluster of Norfolk and Suffolk food and drink businesses is also a wonderful opportunity to meet other food and drink producers in Norfolk and Suffolk and to realise I’m not alone."

Suffolk Meadow will be at the Aldeburgh Food & Drink Festival at the end of September.