Worsdale's Farmhouse Bakery: Meet the Yorkshire family who gave up their dairy herd to make money from cakes

Mabel said that Worsdale’s Farmhouse Bakery, now well-known at weekly markets and farmers markets throughout North Yorkshire, began modestly from home.

“I’d always baked. My mum Edith had too. Our son, Adam, had come home to work on the farm and, for another income and since I knew how to, I thought that baking might be a good outlet for me.

“I made jams and chutneys as well as my baking and at the first market I went to at Richmond my table was cleared of all my produce and I just thought ‘oh, that’s wonderful, I’ll go again’.

“It was just me at the time. I used to go to a market, set up, sell out and come back and bake again.”

Such was Mabel’s continuing success and ever-increasing number of markets she attended that life changed on the farm.

Mabel said that baking was to prove their way forward. “I’d started Worsdale’s Famhouse Bakery in 1999 and it was going well until foot and mouth disease closed the countryside down in 2001, but we bounced back after it and we were making more money through baking than farming.

“Foot and mouth disease had tightened everything up even more farming-wise. We hadn’t been able to move off the calves that would normally have been sold from the dairy herd and we’d had to buy in more feed to keep them healthy. We came out of dairying completely in 2004.”

Mabel said it was an eerie experience the day following the dairy cows’ departure.

“Raymond and I had built up the herd. Adam had joined Raymond on the farm having worked previously for Bernard Liddle at Dalesend Farms after leaving school.

“We were entrenched in dairying but business-wise it had just made sense to quit. I’d go and help with milking, feed the calves and wash out, but that first morning after they had gone I remember it was just so quiet.”

Adam is today’s public face of Worsdale’s with Mabel and Raymond aiming to take things a little easier if that’s possible. He’s now the main man at most of the markets they attend and has extended their presence in shops all around Yorkshire.

Adam said the move away from dairying initially saw him having to seek work further afield.

“When the cows went I took up putting up polytunnels for my uncle John for a year and then took on a job working for Semex UK and working part-time for a local dairy farmer. I gave up the Semex job in August last year when mum and dad wanted to take more of a back seat. That’s when I started doing the markets.

“I’m now at Bedale, Northallerton and Ripon every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and at farmers; markets for the first three Saturdays each month and the last Sunday. I still milk two days a week too.”

The Worsdales moved over the road to Mill Becks Farm where they own 18 acres when they gave up the tenancy at Low Hall Farm in 2017. Mill Becks is now home to Adam, his wife Louise and their family with Raymond and Mabel in the annexe in a new build they completed.

Worsdale’s Farmhouse Bakery is now housed at Mill Becks Farm in a new building with new state-of-the-art cookers, a new cold store that is half as big again as their previous store and a new packing machine.

Mabel has recently had to step back into the bakery as they have just lost a member of staff, and said demand is growing for their produce and grew markedly during the pandemic.

“We bake every day from 9am to 4pm and because we then can’t wrap the produce until it is cool we are usually back in a little later, but the new packing machine will wrap 50 pieces of flapjack in a minute now, instead of the best part of half an hour.

“During lockdown all the markets we attended did really well. People were happy to shop outside and sales went up. We continue to grow our range as well.

“We have 96 lines altogether and all 96 go to every market. We can add to our lines but we can’t take anything off because they are all popular.

“Everything is still homemade on the premises. There are no preserves, no additives, that’s why our customers like what we make. Everything is rustic, that’s all I know, and we bake things that are quick, into a bag and gone. We don’t bake things that have a short shelf life like products with creams and buttercreams.”

Mabel still attends some farmers’ markets. Adam’s son Jake, who is an electrician by trade, gets involved too by taking his grandmother to Otley Farmers’ Market the last Sunday every month. Jake also covers for when Adam has other commitments.

Raymond said that he has always enjoyed the farmers’ markets and livestock markets.

“I don’t miss dairy farming or farming. I still do Masham every Saturday and we have some really good shops that we also supply like Green’s at Thirsk Livestock Market, which is really good for us; Costco in Boston Spa; Leathley and Birchfield farm shops; and The Tandem Café in Bedale.

“We also make cakes for the WI stand at the Great Yorkshire Show and Mabel and her team make 500 Christmas cakes every year.

“Our farmers’ markets are at Stokesley, Thirsk, Hartlepool, Stewart Park in Middlesbrough, Otley, Harrogate and Easingwold.”