Dougal Campbell Bursary Award

The 2025 winning application by Jake Goldstein of Primrose Creamery stood out for its thoughtful, values-driven business case, demonstrating a clear commitment to sustainability, community, and craft. As a new entrant in artisan cheesemaking based at the Welbeck Estate in Nottinghamshire, Jake plans to use the bursary to invest in milk transport infrstructure and low-energy processing methods, laying practical foundations for environmentally responsible production. Funding will also support community outreach, including tastings and workshops to build public understanding of traditional cheesemaking.

2024 saw Bradley Cunningham of Wacky Wedge Cheese Co pick up a well deserved win. Cheese Yr Afr is a raw milk lactic goat cheese, made from a small herd of his own goats. Last year, they started production on a commercial scale and, with the success of winning best micro producer at the Artisan Cheese Awards, and because the cheese tastes great, they are getting customers returning for more!Brad this year entered the Wacky Wedge Cheese Co. for the Dougal Campbell award, in the hope to invest in more cheese making vats and equipment to step production up a gear. The judges loved the enthusiasm for future plans to make other raw milk cheeses in the coming years, coupled with Brads focus on sustainable methods of farming and cheesemaking. Congratulations to Brad and his team

2023 sees a winner from Northern Ireland. Davide and Sarah Tani from Velocheese. Davide was impressed by the quality of milk in Northern Ireland and excited to be involved. He started hand stretching mozzarella to his own recipe and developed burata, stracciatella, scamorza and smoked scamorza recipes. Thanks to a man originally from Sardinia, consumers in Northern Ireland now have the opportunity to experience fresh mozzarella and burata. The business is called Velocheese because Davide is focused on sustainability and wishes to be a thought leader on minimising waste, pollution and energy use. Velo reflects his longstanding interest in emission-free transport for the movement of cheese and other products. He sees velomobiles (a covered tricycle), bicycles and trailers as great way achieve inner city deliveries and to reduce congestion and pollution while promoting health benefits to employees. He is also looking at future initiatives to reduce his whey waste product.

Winners of Dougal Campbell bursary 2022 were Sam and Ben Spence of Curlew Dairy. Despite having faced eviction and coming originally from the world of finance (to which they did not wish to return), this couple really utilised their cheesemaking relationships for knowledge and managed to continue their quest to service their local community with specialist cheese and even improve their recipes along the way, all from their newly converted garage.

Winner in 2019 was Sam Horton of Long Churn. So sure was Sam that he wanted to become an artisan cheesemaker that he prioritised his life to make it happen. Months touring on-farm cheesemakers, courses including those at Neal’s Yard, The School of Artisan Food and Courtyard Dairy, purchasing a specialised library of technical reading material, early morning milking of a flock of sheep before work, trial batches of cheesemaking after work…the list of his commitment goes on. It is then with admiration and pleasure that the SCA can congratulate Sam on winning this year’s Dougal Campbell Award (and to his partner Rachel too!).

Neil Robinson and Dominique Lize-Beaulieuof Manor Farm who won the award in 2018 said:> Until 4 years ago we had no real knowledge of how cheese was made other than vague notions of curds and whey. Shortly after making our first cheese, we turned our attention to using British methods to make territorial-style hard-pressed cheese, whilst attempting to source the best and freshest milk we could muster in London. In keeping with our interest in territorial cheese we decided to make a Double Gloucester with the farm’s milk. We are developing our cheese ‘Chedworth Double Gloucester’ to reflect the farming practices of the organic dairy farm on which it is made 

Carrie Rimes of Cosyn Cymru winner of the Award in 2017 said:> With a good deal of help from our local Food Technology Centre (FTC) and a generous dollop of beginner’s luck, things initially seemed promising, but at 2 years, suddenly a whole suite of largely unrelated problems descended……as they do! In the darkest hour, when I’d convinced myself that I’d never make a decent cheese again………along came the Dougal Campbell award. Never has a confidence boost been more timely – thank you SCA! Since then, slowly and gradually, things have turned around. The DC award has helped fund the move from the protective environment of FTC to the outside world, where I now share a dairy with fellow cheese-maker Menai Wyn Jones who makes Môn Las – Anglesey Blue. Together with help from Agriscop, we now have a local group of farmers and small-holders interested in milking sheep. So thank you Dougal – you see I can’t possibly give up now, can I?

David Holton and Tim Jarvis of Blackwood Cheese Company winners of the award in 2016 who make a number of different cheeses sourcing milk from an organic farm in Kent said:> In 2016, fed up with limitations and logistics of making cheese in an Industrial unit in South London, we had the idea to relocate our dairy into an old farm building at our milk source. The Dougal Campbell Bursary helped us achieve this idea. We put the funds towards the new hygienic flooring needed in the building. It’s now 2017 and we’ve moved in and are making cheese on top of our fantastic blue floor.

Gillian Clough, winner of the award in 2015 said:> When I applied for the Bursary last year I had expected to have 6 goats in milk but that didn’t quite work out and I only had milk to make cheese with from four goats in 2015. If things work out this year I should have 8. Given the size of operation I think I had amazing success last year. I received FSA approval at about the same time I was informed I had won the Dougal Campbell award. My cheese is called Gāt and I entered it in the British Cheese Awards in May, and was pleased to receive a bronze award, and the Great Yorkshire Show in July where it picked up two golds and won best UK raw milk cheese. I spent some of the bursary on a residue testing exercise and a dishwasher for the extended dairy. Although the money has been extremely helpful, and the farm visit informative, it was the fact that respected people in the cheese world thought I had something worth investing in which has had the biggest impact.