The former dairy farmer with a booming ice cream and restaurant business

It is this ability to see life from a different perspective that led to his and his wife Louise’s change of direction that brought about the brand of Yummy Yorkshire Ice Cream and latterly Hide & Hoof Restaurant and a popular Sunday market at Delph House Farm in Upper Denby.

“When others were watching the Northern Lights and when they enjoy sunsets, I always see sunrises,” says Jeremy. “It’s something I always used to love as a dairy farmer and I still get up and enjoy them now. I’m up at five o’clock and wander around even though my job has changed from dealing with cows to dealing with customers.

Jeremy and Louise started Yummy Yorkshire Ice Cream in 2007 after Jeremy had become despondent about processing their own milk. Today the ice cream is still made on site, but the dairy cows were finally sold just under two years ago.

“For producer/processors like us it got very competitive. There were lots of small farms processing and it became cutthroat. Milkmen, roundsmen, were being poached, we couldn’t find the right people in the dairy and it just got to point where we were not making any money. Combined with that, I had equipment that needed replacing.

“I thought there had to be to be something else we could do and as we were separating milk and had quite a bit of spare cream I thought of making ice cream.

“At that time we didn’t have an outlet for it, but we found that we did because our outlet was right here. Almost immediately we had people coming on to the farm and buying it from a chest freezer in the dairy. The following year we converted a redundant calf pen into an 18- seater parlour for teas, coffees, ice cream and toasties.

“Six years later in 2013 we received grant funding to extend the restaurant / café into a 36-seater. We then looked at using the dairy as the kitchen for the café and ran it that way until 2017 and then built another extension, which has now become the 85-seater restaurant Hide & Hoof."

Yummy Yorkshire ice cream is still made on site even though the cows disappeared completely two years ago.

“Yummy Yorkshire is still a large part of our business,” says Jeremy. “Hide & Hoof is too. It’s a 7-day a week operation, open for breakfast at 9 o’clock and with the last food order at 4.15pm. The restaurant has taken seasonality out of our business.

"They’re our main focus along with the Sunday market every other week from Easter to Christmas with 34-36 traders every time and all offering different homemade produce and crafts. We also have a small log cabin called The Udder Room that is like an express outlet for teas, coffees and ice creams.”

Jeremy finally ceased milking completely when he and Louise sold all the cows in March 2022.

It had been a long and slow transition from being a producer/processor to just a dairy farmer and to now being purely retail and one that Jeremy admits to missing, but he brings back that perspective again, the way people see things differently.

“We were still processing milk and making ice cream here until 2013-14. We still make ice cream now, but the thing that was happening was the ice cream was gaining popularity and we needed more equipment and could see the value in it, but we were using the same dairy as our processing, which was not as valuable.

"The two were fighting for space and something had to give. We decided we would stop processing the milk.

“When we made the decision to come out of dairy farming completely I knew deep down it was the right decision even though it was huge for me. I’m a born and bred dairy farmer, but at the end of the day everybody’s here to make money and we weren’t, it was long hours and seven days a week.

“If I’m really honest, and it’s been a couple of years now since the cows have gone, I always have a fascination with cows. I used to be a half decent dairy judge and there is nothing better than pulling a nice heifer calf out of a cow in a morning when you’re on your own, in the sunrise. I do miss that. Quite a lot.

" But I had to make a decision. My milking parlour was absolutely on its last legs. The cows just had to go.

“My dad brought me up the right way and sometimes gave me enough lead to make my own decisions. He told me that I had to speak to our roundsmen each morning, that they were our bread and butter and to make sure they were happy because they were paying some decent money. It was a good lesson for today with a team of 38.

“What we’re doing now is extremely difficult because times are tough and with more people it’s a challenge, but those ethics dad instilled are still there now.”

Jeremy says his and Louise’s focus is on the strong brands they have with the market, Yummy Yorkshire and Hide & Hoof.

“We’ve just launched our Yummy Yorkshire App, we’re developing a new flavour range and we are working with a local guy and have just launched a protein ice cream.

“I’m still part of the countryside even though I’m no longer a dairy farmer milking 120 cows and bottling 1000 gallons of milk a day as we did at our peak 22 years ago. And I still love being up in the morning, it’s what I do.”