Fivemiletown Creamery speciality cheese for Dobbies in UK

Dobbies Garden Centres (Dobbies) is to sell virtually the entire range of Fivemiletown Creamery's award winning speciality soft cheeses and cheddars in its existing 14 farm food halls throughout the United Kingdom.

The contract follows the successful introduction of Fivemiletown cheese wedges at Dobbies in Lisburn earlier in the year. Dobbies, now owned by Tesco, aims to expand the garden centre network to around 100 outlets over the next few years and will open at Carlisle in July, Peterborough in August and Liverpool the following month. A further five are scheduled next year.

In 2010, Dobbies opened its first outlet in Northern Ireland, near Lisburn, County Antrim in a total investment of £8.6 million.

Announcing the deal with Dobbies, Owen Jones, Fivemiletown Creamery's Business Development Manager in Great Britain, said: "This a very significant strategic development for us which is a further and significant expansion of our network of outlets throughout the United Kingdom.

"Dobbies is now the country's biggest garden centre chain. Our products have been listed as 'must buy' in all the chain's food halls which have a focus on natural products and the provenance which underpins our cheese.

"It's an ideal market for us because the centres tend to attract affluent customers with money to spend on their homes and interested in local products. The contract is also a marvellous endorsement of the quality and variety of our product range by a major UK operation within the Tesco family of businesses."

Fivemiletown's award winning cheeses are now in the chill cabinets of the farm food halls within Dobbies.

Dobbies was founded in 1865 by James Dobbie, who created a seeds business named Dobbie & Co. After being awarded the Royal Warrant for Gardeners and Nurserymen to the Royal Household, the company expanded into a seed catalogue business, where it built up a customer base of 50,000 over the following century.

In 1969 the company expanded out of its Scottish base into England, and was floated on the Alternative Investment Market in 1987. It moved into garden centres in 1984. The company was acquired by Tesco in 2008.

Dobbies now operates 28 garden centres in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as several large attractions including Plantasia, near Coventry. Many of the centres have restaurants and farm food halls for leisure shoppers.

Established for more than 100 years, Fivemiletown Creamery, located in County Tyrone, employs 80 people in processing cheddar and speciality cheese, mostly from milk supplied by the 60 farmers who together own the co-operative and farm the lush pastures of the Clogher Valley.

The creamery now supplies cheese to many of the world's biggest supermarkets including Wal-Mart in the US, Harrods, Asda, Sainsbury's, John Lewis and Tesco in the UK, and Galeries Lafayette stores in Paris and throughout France. In addition top retailers, Fivemiletown Creamery now supplies speciality cheese to over 80 per cent of the 3,000 delis and farm shops across the UK.

The company has also won a string of major quality awards in prestigious events such as the Nantwich International Festival and the UK Great Taste Awards.