Wyke Farms, the UK's largest independent cheese producers, have furthered their ‘100% Green' sustainability plan with a new 65kw solar array, positioned on their new cheese storage dispatch building at Wincanton, Somerset.

The state-of-the art building holds its temperature at 12 degrees and is highly energy efficient. Managing director Rich Clothier, a third generation family member at Wyke Farms, said: "My grandmother's stone maturing barn on the farm stayed at a steady 12c with some small seasonal variations – in our new stores we have replicated that closely in order to keep the recipe as close to hers as possible".

There is space for 1762 pallets of cheese, amounting to approximately 2000 tonnes of additional storage capacity that is required to meet the demands of growing export sales for vintage flavours.

Mr Clothier said: "This is our fifth business solar array set and moves us closer to fulfilling our commitment to position solar on all of our South facing roofs where we use daytime power. Reducing carbon is essential for all businesses and this is an easy, cost effective way to do just that."

"The principles of sustainability are at the heart of all of our business decisions as we can see from the continual development of our green portfolio over the last 10 years. Cheddar is a natural food produced from grass; using the power of nature to age it in a way that has a positive impact on the environment is intuitively the best way to do it."

Wyke Farms' investment in green energy has seen it dramatically reduce its carbon footprint and become the first national cheddar brand to be 100% self-sufficient using their own energy generated from solar and biogas.