Extraordinary year for Yorkshire's doorstop deliveries with huge boom in sales of artisan cheese

As the nation has paused many leisure pursuits, it seems a great many people have sought comfort instead in the purchase of artisan cheese.

Yorkshire’s sellers have reported an extraordinary year. With a huge boom in interest for their finest produce, they are reeling in demand for doorstep deliveries.

“We’ve never been busier,” said Harry Baines of Love Cheese in York’s Gillygate, whose taster evenings for cheese samples with wine are sold out until March.

“It’s been a real curve-ball. As people are going out less, they are looking for things to do. Cheese and wine is that little bit of a treat. It is just so comforting.”

Back in April, as the first lockdown hit, Mr Baines had invited his regular customers to an evening taster session, hosted online with help from his wife, Phoebe.

Decanting wine into chutney jars which was all he could find, he had been astonished as 46 couples signed up for the doorstep deliveries of his selection of cheeses.

The following week, there was a four-fold rise in demand. January is booming, with people meeting virtually online for cheese parties with up to 15 households.

He has been pleasantly surprised, said Mr Baines, to watch a new community unfold.

One night, as he paired a 10-year-old tawny port with a nutty gouda-like cheese called Wyfe of Bath, he had stepped back in delight to watch the debate that ensued.

“For my wife and I, it’s our new Saturday night,” he said. “Cheese and wine. People have really enjoyed that sense of discovery and trying new things.”

Home deliveries

Across Yorkshire, cheese sellers have formed innovative ways of delivering, in platters or boards or individually wrapped, with chutneys and flavourings and biscuits and jams.

In Burley-in-Wharfedale, Jeremy Benn has never been busier. His business, Wharfedale Fine Cheeses, is suddenly in demand.

“For a little one-man band it’s been around the clock,” he said. “I’ve loved every minute. It could all have been so different.”

Mr Benn, a stallholder more used to the bustle of quaint market towns, had been firmly against online sales or deliveries until last year.

A cheese monger’s business is not in selling cheese, he insists, but rather in the expertise and the story and an innate understanding of each person’s plate.

“It’s all about where it comes from and how it’s made,” he said. “At the markets, people often spend half an hour choosing.”

Last week, as he unwrapped 14 batches, Mr Benn beamed like a “child in a sweetshop” with each new find, and it is easy to imagine this infectious enthusiasm securing a sale.

Yet it is doorstep deliveries that have proved a surprise. He started delivering locally in March, stunned at some 70 orders.

In the run-up to Christmas it was 190, selling 206.5kg of cheese, covering 700 miles in local trips.

“I’m just a simple guy, selling cheese,” said Mr Benn. “It just went crazy. When you get that delivery, and it’s me with my cheese, it’s exciting, I suppose.

"The only complaint is there’s too much to choose from.”

Rising popularity

Mr Baines, with his shop in Gillygate in York still open, believes that while Britain’s fascination with cheese may not be as well documented as in Europe, the nation’s dairy produce can well hold its own.

Alongside the ‘territorials’ – the Wensleydales and Gloucesters and Stiltons for which England is known – he suggests there has been a distinct change in society’s tastes.

“As confidence in British cheese has grown we have pushed into a new era and people are taking that leap,” he said. “Our cheeses are becoming much more well-known.”

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