King opens new cheese campus after devastating fire

A beloved Lancashire cheesemakers has opened a new cheese campus, two years after a devastating fire ripped through its premises.

King Charles attended the official launch at Butlers Farmhouse Cheeses in Inglewhite, taking a tour of the site and unveiling a commemorative plaque. 

The fourth-generation family cheesemakers have been crafting British hard, blue and soft farmhouse cheeses since 1932, supplying a range of independent UK retailers and supermarkets.

The owners were forced to rebuild from the ground up after a devastating fire at their Longridge office and packing site in November 2023, when hundreds of tonnes of cheese stock were lost just six weeks before Christmas.

Operations were moved to the rural Lancashire dairy, where the new campus is based. Opened on 10th February 2026, the site – created primarily using local businesses – marries modern technology with traditional farmhouse cheesemaking techniques. 

Bringing the entire operation onto one site, from the herds to the matured, wrapped finished products, it also seriously boosts Butlers’ sustainability credentials.

Cheesemaking history

During the visit, the King met three generations of the family including second-generation owner Jean Butler, reviewing historical records and hearing stories from the family’s nearly century-long cheesemaking history. He then toured the campus with third-generation owner Gillian Hall and fourth-generation owners Matthew Hall and Daniel Hall to take in each stage of Butlers’ farmhouse cheesemaking craft, from milk to maturation, grading, cutting and packing. 

He also chatted to Butlers’ longest-standing employee, head cheese grader Bill Yates, and their head cheesemaker Tim Fisher, before sampling lauded cheeses including Blacksticks Blue, known for its distinctive orange hue.

He finished by unveiling a commemorative plaque to a small crowd of farmers, partners, suppliers, customers, employees and local luminaries, describing Butlers as “an exceptional family business”.

A sustainable future

Butlers’ cheeses – which also include classic Lancashire cheese Trotter Hill and goat’s cheese Kidderton Ash – are crafted by hand, using milk from the family herd and otherwise sourced from local farms within a 10-mile radius.

The new campus aims to boost sustainability further, including reducing road traffic and food miles by approximately 50 per cent compared to operating across two sites. The build also used rubble from the fire site to create connecting paths, and the campus includes a new, state-of-the-art Maturation Shed to meet the different requirements of Butlers’ hard, blue and soft cheeses. 

The site will also be used for training and careers across cheesemaking, operations, and specialist roles such as data science and AI.

“Rather than replacing what we lost in the fire, we have chosen to make a generational investment for the long-term,” said Matthew. “Our campus represents everything we stand for – respect for our craft, belief in the resilience of our people, and a long-term commitment to doing things the right way.”