Making sure Westcountry visitors can enjoy the region’s famous cream teas is a serious business – so much so, that one Cornish company is putting on extra shifts, creating 35 vacancies, to ensure the flow of high quality local milk and cream will reach all parts of the peninsula in what is predicted to be a record-breaking summer.
In a normal summer, Trewithen Dairy – which sources milk from 35 local Cornish farms – produces enough clotted cream in a single day to create 75,000 individual cream teas and this output is expected to rise to around 100,000 cream tea equivalents at the height of this summer with the help of the enlarged team.
Trewithen Dairy, which already employs 250 full-time staff, decided on the increase to help cope with predicted demand as tourism providers across the region report an unprecedented upturn in visitor bookings being made now that Covid-restrictions are easing.
The family-run dairy’s joint managing director, Francis Clarke, says: “We made the decision while preparing for this busy summer. During the lockdowns we saw a significant reduction in sales through the service sector – pubs, restaurants and the like – but we look forward to that coming back to life. Everything indicates that Cornwall and the South West is going to be very busy. But despite these challenges we have been fortunate to grow our total sales in the past 12-months with both new and existing customers. So we are preparing for that and making sure we do a great job for all our customers in what will be a very important recovery year for our region’s businesses,” says Francis.
And he added that a record-breaking summer in visitor numbers would be good news for regional produce in general.
“When people enjoy a holiday here, they are introduced to the great array of quality products Cornwall has to offer and they want to carry on purchasing them when they go home. We see it in our sales. There are regions where people typically holiday in Cornwall – London and the M4 and M5 corridors – and we see that sales of Cornish products in those areas are particularly strong. People are wanting to buy that taste of Cornwall when they go home,” commented Francis. “So yes, we can certainly benefit from the fact that people like our products when they are here on holiday and then want to evoke those memories with Cornish products at home.”
The 35 extra staff are required with immediate effect across operations at the Trewithen Dairy headquarters in the Glynn Valley near Bodmin.
“That’s everything from production operatives and lab technicians to drivers, warehouse staff and an IT technician, with many of the roles including training and progression opportunities” said Francis. “So it’s a real mix. Anyone joining Trewithen will join a ‘can do’ business, learns team skills and in the more technical roles there’s a good deal of quality training.”
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