Alvis Brothers

Tuesday 27th & Wednesday 28th April 2010
Posted by Nikki
We set off for a place called Redhill near Bristol which is in the south West of England. We stayed with John & Pauline Alvis who run Alvis brothers. They have two sons Johnny and Peter who are also involved in their business along with about 120 other employees. It is a business that has lots of arms but essentially their philosophy is that they have land on which they grow grass, the grass feeds the cows who give the milk to make the cheese and they feed the whey from the cheese making process back to the pigs whos’ manure they spread on the paddocks for fertiliser. So its circular integration as each part of their business benefits another part. They also have a shop front in which they sell all of their cheese and pork products and also may other products from other local farm businesses. From oils, to yoghurts to vegies to even other peoples cheeses.


Peter gave us a tour through the cheese factory. It is a mammoth operation and produces a huge amount of hard cheeses. They currently have nearly 3000 tonnes of cheese in storage. We did a vertical tasting of different aged cheeses and the difference was very clear. The business appears to be very well structured and managed, with excellent staff retention rates which is a credit to their people management skills, which is something that often bigger businesses lack.

Nick Green gave us a tour around the farms, they have three separate dairies and a number of properties scattered through the villages. The roads through these little country villages are horrifyingly narrow and they have those awful hedges lining all the roads. Not only do they make driving dangerous but you cant see through them into the countryside which I find very annoying. The hedges are now protected though so that the badgers (that carry TB to infect the cattle,  are now also protected) and other little animals can have somewhere to live. I think they are terrible  but the locals don’t seem to mind them at all.