A milk vending machine has become a popular diversification for many dairy farmers, but one family found unexpected fame after appearing on Clarkson's Farm, and now stocks the popular Diddly Squat Farm Shop.
Husband and wife team Emma and Pete Ledbury came to Butlers Road Farm, a 72-hectare council farm near Long Compton, Warwickshire in 2014. It was not, however, the most idyllic start to farming in the Cotswolds that some might imagine.
"We were previously farming with Pete's parents down in Somerset, but the landlords were developing the land for houses, so we knew we would need to relocate at some point," says Emma.
"In August 2014 I initially moved with our three children up to the new farm, and Pete stayed in Somerset because we still had a milk contract with the Alvis family at Lye Cross Farm, and our new contract was not due to start until March 2015.
"The plan was for Pete to stay in Somerset with the milkers, and I would bring the in-calf heifers up here and milk them when they calved, then dump the milk until the milk contract started. I was calving heifers, milking them in a new parlour and renovating the house with three kids on my own, in an area I did not know."
Then they hit a stumbling block - frustratingly, the dairy herd got TB, and for a while it looked like the couple were going to be stuck with two herds. Fortunately, they went clear, and they came up to the new farm in time for the new contract starting.
TB has been a struggle ever since.
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"We were clear for a couple of years and then we went down quite badly, losing 30. Then we went clear for another couple of years and had started getting the numbers back up, only to go down and lose a load again."
The herd currently sits at 70 pedigree Holstein milking cows but, they say, ‘as soon as we try to up the numbers we go down again.'
"I think the farm is trying to tell us it is happy at 70. It is really frustrating because we get backlogged with beef cattle that we do not have the space for," she says.
They are on a Muller contract and use a 24/24 herringbone parlour, milking twice a day.
But keeping the Holstein bloodlines going is important for the couple too. Pete's grandfather originally started with the Holsteins, then his parents kept the Holstein bloodline, then Pete and Emma. And when they moved here, they decided to go pedigree.
But it was after a TB breakdown that the couple looked to processing milk - an idea that had been brewing for a while.
"We had talked about it and it was something we thought we might do when we applied for the farm. And when we lost a big chunk of the cattle to TB, we decided we had to make more money from the milk and it just seemed to make sense," says Emma.
They used the compensation from the TB breakdown to buy a second-hand pasteuriser. "The compensation nearly covers the cost of replacing the cows, but it does not cover the lost income. So, when we saw the pasteurising unit for sale, we thought right, that is what we will do then."
They started supplying farm shops in the area with bottled milk - at the time there was no one around the area doing it. It has made an important impact on the business.
Emma says: "It was definitely the right thing to do but I do not think we realised how much work would be involved.
"It has kept us farming; Financially I do not think we would have survived without it - but it does cost a lot in terms of time and being tied to the farm."
Then, in April 2019, they purchased a milk vending machine to have at the farm.
"Covid hit and it went crazy. We went from selling 40 litres of milk on the farm a day, to 200 to 300 litres a day, and queues up the road.
"We started supplying to cafes too, as they could not get milk from their usual supplier. We are really fortunate that most of them have stayed with us too."
Things changed again when Lisa Hogan, Jeremy Clarkson's partner, arrived at the farm looking for a vending machine to have at their farm shop, Diddly Squat.
"Lisa was really keen on having local produce - and with the planning restrictions it had to be local anyway. There was no mention of a television programme, and it was during Covid anyway," says Emma.
"She wanted to know if we could put in a vending machine, service it and fill it up for them. And we were thinking, ‘oh it is never going to be very busy'. We had driven past and seen this little farm shop, and we thought it would be manageable - how wrong were we?" says Emma, laughing at the memory.
"For a long time, we were only selling 80 litres of milk a week and starting to worry about the demand. Then the programme came out - Clarkson's Farm - and it was just bonkers.
"There were seven-hour queues just to get into the shop, which is amazing. We went from selling very little, maintaining the tanks, running around a lot to make sure it was a nice fresh product to, almost overnight, the complete opposite.
"We were having to go in under the cover of darkness or early in the morning, so we were not getting in the way of people queuing. But it has been great fun. Pete always comes back with stories of the people he has met. They are normally in farming, so he really enjoys meeting everyone and chatting."
And it has had a positive impact for the business. Sales have gone up and they have had a lot of interest from people throughout the UK wanting to stock their milk.
"Obviously we do not have the infrastructure or transport everywhere - it is not a product we can box up and post out.
"We try to redirect people to their local farms and vending machines - the whole point is to buy local - so hopefully other people will have had a bonus off the back of the programme too.
"It would be really nice to think that people are going home from visiting Diddly Squat and supporting their local farmers."
And they did gain another new customer from the programme. "When Jeremy was trying to form a cooperative and gathered some local farmers for a meeting, I met some fruit and vegetable farmers who were doing pick your own. So now they have a vending machine on their farm - they are great to work with.
"Kaleb used to work a little bit for us, before the programme. We watch him get swamped with people and we can just go out and no one bothers us, it is really nice," she says.
"We were made to sign disclaimers to not talk about it and I thought, I will not end up in it anyway -then when it aired, I was like, oh God, I am in it."
On the programme, Emma discussed the battle they have had with TB, which clearly pulled on the heartstrings of the public and led to a fundraising page being set up for them.
"I was not expecting that, it was really lovely, but it is not just us that are suffering with TB," says Emma.
"It raised a lot of money in the end. Most of it was donated to the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution and we kept some to buy some gates to badger proof our youngstock shed."
In terms of future plans, the couple are toying with the idea of glamping but are nearing the end of their tenancy.
"We are a bit in limbo at the moment. We are 10 years into our 15-year tenancy, we do have a beautiful view across the valley here, but we would have to talk to our landlord first.
"I am thinking about trying to do a bit of merchandise.
"When the programme aired, we had a few people message saying they would like to buy something from us, but we did not have anything to sell that was not milk. It is just finding the time to do it."
And in the short term they have a simpler goal. "We want to get to a stage where our work life balance is better, labour is a struggle as it is just us and a couple of relief staff, but we want to have a summer where we actually see the kids - they are growing up so fast."
Box: Farm facts:
- 70 pedigree Holstein milking cows, milked on a 24/24 herringbone parlour
- Beef calves are Aberdeen Angus, Belgian Blue and Hereford crosses
- 72 ha in total
- Muller milk contract, with a vending machine operating in Jeremy Clarkson's farm shop, Diddly Squat
