The Milk Development Council (MDC) have had a Forum for interested parties from the Guernsey and Jersey producers and processors of quality milk in place for the last few years.

The G&J Forum has commissioned market research and has produced a plan to be implemented over the next 18 months to raise the profile of both breeds and their milk and milk products.

MDC have executed similar plans for the Cheshire Cheese producers and West Country Farmhouse Cheese makers where the Processors have produced evidence of Promotional spending on their products which has then been "matched"by MDC using the "Levy" taken from Dairy Farmers on every litre of milk produced.

The other " Levy" bodies had united on a joint stand under the "Red Tractor" umbrella and there were 5 stands sharing a Kitchen and sampling a diverse range of foods, Carrots, Peas, Cereals, Pork and Guernsey and Jersey milk products over the 5 days of the show.

The first day (Weds) was taken by Dairy Farmers of Britain who were sampling their new product Channel Island Brie made by Lubborn Cheese from Crewkerne,Dorset which is made with a mix of Guernsey and Jersey Milk and won first prize at the Bath & West Cheese show in May.

On Thursday Highgrove Foods and QMP sampled Gold Top Milk again produced from a mix of Guernsey and Jersey milk from herds in Cumbria and Scotland by Graham’s Dairies.

Delamere Dairy from Cheshire were sampling their "Golden Brie" made with Guernsey milk from the Tiresford herd on the Friday.

This left the weekend which had some of the largest attendances and on the Saturday Olive Farm Babcary took the stand to sample their new range of Yoghurts made with the milk from the Hurdlebrook Guernsey herd in Somerset. Having persuaded David and Rosie Paull to take part I felt that I should attend myself so as to measure reaction and to pursue any Press opportunities.

Brian and Sheila Adams had offered to held with the sampling and Ben who is godfather to the Paull’s daughters and helps with the Farmers Market stalls that are the normal outlet for Olive Farm’s product range which until fairly recently has been Guernsey Cream and Milk.

The "Live and Lovely" yoghurt was a combination of Guernsey wholemilk and Guernsey cream with no preservatives or additives and had a real luxury taste and almost every consumer seemed very impressed.

The other product offered was a "smoothie" like yoghurt drink which used the skim milk by product from the Cream to which had been added Somerset apple juice and Somerset Honey plus a small amount of Vanilla and this product proved very popular.

Rosie soon had me in an apron helping Ben to give away the samples whilst she and David and Brian and Sheila filled the sample pots in the Kitchen.

Demand was manic and carried on throughout the day and at the end by counting the empty boxes we calculated that approx 4000 samples had been tasted and only 4 consumers did not like the products. Most would ask as to where they could purchase the products and went away with a brochure and the request that if they wanted to buy they should approach their local store and ask them to stock the products. It will be interesting to see what follow up there is, but in any event the Paull’s went home assured that their "new"yoghurt range had passed the consumer test.

Robert Moore had agreed to sample his Brymor Ice Cream on the Sunday and I stayed in Birmingham to lend him a hand.

Limited space on the stand, particularly to store Ice Cream meant that Robert had to walk out to the Car Park on several occasions to carry in more stock. Because of this he had opted to just offer his single serving tubs of plain vanilla and not the other 35 flavours available at Brymor. He had also brought packs of the rest of his product range to display,Cheese, Clotted Cream , Double Cream ,Milk and Veal and Ham Pies.

As on Saturday the reaction to the product was entirely favourable and leaflets were taken by almost every consumer in particular for the Cheese and Clotted Cream which is available nationally by Mail Order, whilst the Ice Cream is available across most of Yorkshire.

The Ice Cream had all been consumed by early afternoon and Robert and I ended up sampling Breakfast Milk which had been used in the samples of Porridge given out from the Cereals stand. Robert as a true Yorkshireman had not tasted Breakfast Milk before but was soon persuaded by the Consumers reaction that he should place more attention to his sales of whole milk, particularly as his own milk was considerably cheaper than the Breakfast Milk !

Overall this weekend was a demonstration of the "advantages" of Guernsey milk products but also a demonstration of the problems that still confront those who have invested in processing, mainly distribution of the product, and also getting the product sampled and therefore appreciated.

Robert correctly identified that all of the products should have been available for the whole of the show as we had people coming to the stand at the weekend asking for milk and cheese, which they had enjoyed on the previous days.

We should have had a map of the UK showing the location of the other Guernsey processors and retail outlets for the full range of Guernsey products.

Keith Collins of Highgrove Foods is keen to repeat the exercise next year but on a commercial basis, sampling coupled with sales of product.

This may be in combination with our Jersey cousins or perhaps on our own behalf as we have several producer processors who could provide the full range of products across the 5 days without having to commit to the whole show, which after 2 days brought home to me the true meaning of the term that "my feet were killing me".

Conversations with other stall holders and or consumers also suggested other areas of co-operation in which to capitilise on our major advantage the wonderful milk that our Guernsey cows produce.

Thanks are due to MDC and QMP who helped to finance the opportunity for the Paull's and the Moores but in particular to those families who gave their produce and most importantly the time to support this venture.