Binham Blue

Binham Blue is produced by Dr Catherine Temple at Copy’s Green Farm, Wighton, near Wells-Next-The-Sea, in Norfolk. Catherine has her own herd of Brown Swiss cows who are extensively grazed on grass meadows and then fed on homegrown forage crops in the winter.

Catherine began her cheese making journey in the early 00’s from the kitchen of her parents in law, on their farm. She started out making just two buckets of cheese every fortnight. At the time, the family had a great dairy herd but milk was in surplus across the country so wasn’t worth anything financially. Catherine started by running one farmer’s market and realised that there was a huge demand for locally made cheese. A temporary dairy was fashioned inside a refrigerated lorry on the farm, and the family sold their cheese at local markets to help to grow the business, though Catherine continued working as a pharmacist for many years. The dairy went from making and selling 20 small blue cheeses a week to 350, and sell significantly more in the run up to Christmas. Catherine has become one of Norfolk’s best known food producers and has now won multiple awards for her range of cheeses.

Catherine and her husband Stephen are both extremely committed to sustainability and good environmental practice both on the farm and in cheese production. The latter is fuelled by energy created on the farm using biomass technology. They also generate heat, hot water and electricity by using farm waste in an anaerobic digestor and power the farm using renewable energy. In 2006, they were named ‘Green Energy Farmers of the Year’.