Northern Ireland’s Clandeboye Yoghurt the ‘Best in the UK’

Clandeboye Estate, Northern Ireland’s only producer of yoghurt, has been named the UK’s Best in the highly influential Quality Food Awards.

The company, based on an estate near Bangor in county Down, gained the outstanding recognition for the quality and rich flavours of its multi-award winning Madagascan Vanilla Greek Style Yoghurt in the hotly contested Dairy category in the top awards, the most important of the UK’s supermarket grocery sector.

Clandeboye, which sources fresh milk from the estate’s pedigree and award winning dairy herd, was chosen by the expert judges over rival dairy products from Aldi, Arla Foods, Asda and Castle Dairies.

The Quality Food Awards are designed to recognise and reward those products which are leading the way in the market. They have a strong influence on food retailing especially among major supermarkets

Research shows the awards showcase the quality of a winning product and bring confidence to consumers and increase sales. It shows that 74 percent of consumers would trust the quality of a food product carrying the quality logo; 72 percent of consumers had seen the logo before; and 68 percent said they were more likely to buy a product which had won one of the quality awards.

Winning companies can expect extensive marketing support from the awards to showcase their achievement.

Clandeboye now supplies its range of yoghurts to every supermarket in Northern Ireland and to several in the Republic of Ireland especially Aldi-Ireland.

The ambitious company is currently finalising a state-of-the-art creamery on the estate which will provide scope of grow sales in Great Britain, the key target market for the Northern Ireland enterprise. It has already received approaches from retailers in Britain for its Greek style and fruit-infused yoghurts.

The new factory will enable Clandeboye to quadruple production of its range of award-winning luxury yoghurts using fresh milk from the historic estate’s own pedigree Jersey/Holstein herd.

Everything from grazing to production takes place within the Clandeboye Estate. Milk is sourced daily from the herd and those of other local producers – a complete ‘farm-to-spoon’ journey.

The farm currently boasts a herd of around 70 Holsteins and 30 Jerseys which is also not a stranger to awards, winning a string of major UK and Irish championship ribbons and herd competition trophies.

As the only yoghurt manufacturer now located in Northern Ireland, Clandeboye’s mission is to grow the business as sustainably as possible and to maintain the high quality of its natural handcrafted yoghurt offering. The estate has invested extensively in sustainability initiatives.

Clandeboye Estate’s range of Greek style and natural yoghurts were officially launched in 2008 as a farm diversification project by owner the Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava who died last October.