Britain’s oldest Stilton cheese maker will reach the end of the road after two and a half centuries when the Melton Mowbray creamery’s machinery and equipment goes under the auctioneer’s hammer next week.
Founded back in 1780, Tuxford & Tebbutt created a blue Stilton that won just about every possible prize and award that could be bestowed on an English cheese – and gained the admiration of turophiles around the world. (Cheese connoisseurs!)
However recent years have seen Stilton sales hit by a host of challenges ranging from changing public taste and the cost of living crisis to the growing popularity of many new speciality cheeses, including rival blue cheeses.
ARLA, the international farmer’s collective that owned Tuxford & Tebbutt, revealed at the start of last year that the Melton creamery was to be put up for sale. In June it was announced that no buyer had been found and production at the site was to cease.
Now leading industrial auctioneers Eddisons have been instructed to sell off the factory’s machinery, equipment, fixtures and fittings – which are to go under the hammer in an auction that is scheduled to end on Thursday March 6th.
Eddisons Director Paul Cooper said: “Tuxford & Tebbutt were internationally famous for producing a very fine blue Stilton that was made to a 18th century recipe, using traditional skills, but the equipment they used to do it was constantly updated and improved. We haven’t found any antique kit in the factory – not a single piece!”
“The equipment going under the hammer ranges from the creamery’s three huge milk silos . . . steel jacketed tanks each capable of holding 77,500 litres . . . expected to make in excess of £30,000 . . . through to the enormous settlement tanks used early in the cheese making process . . . thousands of cheese moulds . . . and on to piercers, cutters and a range of specialist equipment, some of it bespoke-made for the factory.”
“The quantities of cheese being manufactured on the site at any one time were quite breathtaking. Just one of the storage areas had a capacity of 25,000 ten kilo blocks of Stilton, about 250 tons. So there is a lot of racking and shelving and then all the wrapping, packing, labelling and check-weighing machinery.”
Speaking about potential buyers, Paul said: “Previous UK dairy industry auctions that we’ve staged have attracted bidding from around the world, every continent with the exception of Antarctica. So the interest could come from almost anywhere.”
“The wrapping, packing, weighing equipment is expected to attract particular attention because that state-of-the-art kit has uses across a wide variety of food manufacturing processes.”
“The factory also has equipment that was used to pack cheese into the Tuxford & Tebbutt ceramic jars in which some of their Stilton was sold. That could well be of interest to smaller speciality cheese producers.”
Paul added: “Sadly there is no cheese in the auction. That came as a great disappointment to the numerous turophiles in the auction team. Tuxford & Tebbutt won countless prizes over the years for their cheese . . . which was described as ‘a fantastic creamy Stilton’ ‘with delicious rich piquant flavours’.”
The catalogue is available at auctions.eddisons.com/auctions. By appointment viewing is 10am – 4pm on Tuesday (March 4th) at the Tuxford & Tebbutt Creamery in Melton Mowbray. The online auction is scheduled to end at 1pm on Thursday (March 6th).
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