Don't just take our word for it......
"You can taste the kindness" Rebecca Hoskings of Village Farm.
"I have recently received my latest delivery of your wonderful milk on the HOTTEST day of the year - perfectly packed and chilled. You call yourselves Dairy Angels, I think you should add Dairy Miracle workers to that! Thank you so much. Lovely to see your surroundings displaying such beauty." Jacky Craig
"Go and visit! A magical little place, contented cows and happy calves ... nothing quite like it! Oh, and I almost forgot: great Proper Milk!!!!!!" Rita Lenko
"The most important dairy in the country. Happy, trusting cows that respond to their own name and truly trust their keepers. The team is relentless in their pursuit of doing what is right over what is easy and we should all take note in our own lives. Beautiful, pure and delicious milk, which you know has not deprived the ones for whom it is vital for life. Amazing that we can benefit from animals in this way without hurting them or their babies and herds. Who knew that was possible after all?! There is true joy and satisfaction in enabling a beautiful symbiotic relationship to occur between woman, land and beast, in the way it was meant to be". YueLing Chu
"Good morning Fiona (nearly afternoon!!) I just wanted to say thank you for my last milk delivery, I also ordered some pouring cream as well and have just made some delicious butter with it. It is truly gorgeous!! I am using the buttermilk as well, so nothing is wasted. Your girls are amazing. I love being able to use proper milk without feeling bad about farming methods. Thank you x" Jan Mather
"I’ve just started getting this milk through online ordering. I was motivated originally to support the compassionate treatment of cows and calves......... but - huge bonus - this milk is truly delicious. I understand now why it is ‘proper ‘ milk. I had thought the full cream would be too creamy tasting for me, but not at all. The creaminess is just perfect. A cool glass of this wonderful raw milk is my new favourite drink. I cannot recommend this milk too highly." Karen England.
"Fiona, the beef is absolutely divine. So tender. I've tried the mince, steak and one of the roasts. So reassuring I'm feeding my young family quality and well looked after beef. Thank you for what you do." Paulette Wood
"Hi, I ordered milk from you last week and I just wanted to say it was the most delicious thing that has touched my lips! Thank you SO much. I'm delighted that I'm able to drink milk knowing that the cows who supply it have such a lovely life." Michelle
"Visited here today with my grandson. So lovely to chat with Fiona, she's so knowledgeable and enthusiastic. Bought milk (so creamy), meat (Sunday roast)and cheeses (happy other half 😊). Highlight of the visit was being in amongst the cows and calves (so cute and friendly). Thanks for a great time Fiona, will be seeing you again soon!" Sharon McKim.
"Your milk tastes like the Swiss Milk I missed so much since living in the UK. Thank you!" Beatrix from London
"Came to visit you today with my husband. We were so happy to see such well looked after cows with their babies. The dairy trade is normally so barbaric but we bought some milk, cheese and chocolate milk. I am dairy free but my hubby has sworn never to eat dairy from factory farming again. We will be regular customers from now on. Thank you for caring about cows and may i say such wonderful staff." missy L
"Wow wow wow WOW Hi, Fiona
Had the topside roast that came with our ‘share’ of beef last night for my birthday meal. It was so tasty, tender and just wonderful. We’re glad we have found you!! " Lyn H
"Oh my! My milk just arrived. It’s utterly delicious and feels like a treasure trove of wonderfulness. Thank you so much. I am already recommending to everyone I know! Best wishes Alex"
"Hello Fiona,
Many thanks …The Calf at Foot champagne and caviare has arrived - ready to explore the contents of the woolly box was lovely and cool. Just had a taste of the girls’ milk and butter …Rich, creamy and gorgeously flavourful. All I need now is the T-shirt and the loud hailer. I haven’t got either but I will be taking samples to those who I know talk the language of food with soul.
Waves of delight from the West Country
Liz x.. "
"What an absolute pleasure to meet Tulip today, 2 hours old!
A day I'll never forget. Thank you for allowing us to come to the farm and educate our children"
"We had a fantastic time, we will definitely be back for more milk! Our girls absolutely loved milking the cows and are already asking when they are going back. Thankyou for a lovely day" Michelle Louise Woodbridge
"So glad I found this, after being a vegetarian for over 30 years I was at such dismay at the dairy industrys methods that I felt I had to become vegan (which was not really what I wanted) - now I can have guilt free dairy - thank you so much and please keep up the amazing work you are doing". Keelie on.FB
"Milk arrived today and it is so delicious. I am so relieved that I can buy this milk with a clear conscience knowing that the your herd is allowed to live in such a cow friendly way. Normal commercial dairying is so cruel and exploitative. Thank you! Liz from Aberdeen."
"..if you use milk, this is the place to get it from! No cruelty... and the milk tastes amazing. Happy cows, great milk.... go on!" Rita Lenko
"Amazing place, great ethos, bought me to tears! This is the way all cows should be kept :-)" Sally Hanson
"We enjoyed visiting your wonderful farm so much. The kids loved making friends with the cows and watching/helping you milk! The raw milk is delicious, we can't get enough! C u in a month when our freezers empty!" Ali Panayi
"It was so very good to meet you at the wonderful dairy on Saturday. We found it truly amazing, your oneness with cows and your affinity with them all - it is truly as it was meant to be.
,I rally against the inherent cruelty of the super dairies and the ripping of calves from mothers immediately after the birth. It is a world wide disgrace and I will do all I can to put an end to this barbaric practice.
I will be in touch again soon. In the meantime I am very pleased and privileged to have met you and seen the wonderful work that you do." Neal Sutton
"Just so you know, I have colitis which is proving to be symptom free when I have a glass a day of your milk each day. Hopefully it will continue but it's pretty amazing for me if it does! Many thanks, Vicky McNeilly"
"What a great place deserving of support and recognition, even the cows are happy laughing and joking!" David Stagg
"A wonderful time meeting the cows. For somebody who is scared of cows a little bit, it was lovely to get an almost kiss from one! It is so good to see the place from where comes great milk and good meat. Thanks Fiona it was good to meet you." Sarah Dixon
"Amazing place. Lovely people. My fiancée and our little one and I, had a great walk around the farm. The cows are lovely and very gentle. The milk is amazing and really creamy tasting". Connah Wood
"Had a wonderful time on the weekend visiting the Calf at Foot Dairy and seeing first hand exactly where the milk for my cornflakes comes from!
Fiona is doing a great job of looking after these lovely cows, there's no doubt in my mind that this is the most ethical milk in the UK (and probably the tastiest too!)
Dotty the Jersey Cow was kind enough to give me a whole pint of #RawMilk for the road, straight from udder to cup, Now you can't get fresher than that!
If any Derby or Glasgow Singhs would like to quit the cruel "white poison" supermarket milk and support this Dayavan (compassionate) farm please message me and we will add you into the group milk delivery" Deepak Singh
"5 stars, This is a beautiful little place to visit. The lady is soooooooo friendly and kind.
My 3 children felt very comfortable an at ease there. The cows are very friendly an the milk is delicious.
Wonderful time had by all. Thankyou sooo much for the warm welcome." Tanya Blizard
"Just tried some of your milk....OMG it was truly, truly out of this world. What a hidden gem you are, so glad I found you!" Samantha Elmhurst,
""We had a wonderful experience visiting the dairy, Fiona and Poppy very welcoming and knowledgeable, enjoyed seeing the cows being milked. A huge credit to them on all their hard work and dedication,and what happy cows! Inspirational". Gael Bounton
"Wonderful wonderful farm! The cows are loved and cared for to the highest standards, which gives me 100% confidence in their milk and beef products. I am lactose intolerant, but I have absolutely no problem drinking this 'proper milk' (so to be correct I should say I am intolerant to pasturised milk). It is a joy to be able to drink and enjoy a homemade milkshake - something I have not been able to do for years". Nicky Estaugh
"Wonderful place, wonderful product! My son cannot wait to get there and drink his favourite milk". Ricky Griggs
"Compassionate farming of the highest quality and the best milk I have ever drunk. I am privileged to have found it. Watch as the girls come in off the pasture for milking when they are called by name and see the calves, with whom you share the milk, happy with mum in the beautiful Suffolk countryside". Jack muddikins
"My sister and I shared a delivery of the milk ( we're in scotland). It's the most delicious milk I have EVER tasted. If you've not ordered some then I would highly recommend it! You'll not regret it!!!" Lisa Duncan
"We get this milk every week! Our kids bring cups so they can drink it as soon as we buy it!! It is such a lovely place" Donna Marie Griggs
"Love this milk, so delicious and humanely produced too!" "The pioneering little dairy which has thrown away the rule book of convention" Kione Farish
"First time of trying raw milk. Amazing! Tastes so different to supermarket milk. Will be back"
" What a find, milk with flavour not like that white liquid from the supermarkets. It makes the best rice pudding, custard, quiche etc, and a lovely milky coffee. And the best of it, it's from happy cow's. I'm sure I saw one smile at me!" Allen Beamish
"Thanks very much for the delicious milk I collected from Blythburgh this morning. Takes me back to my childhood when we collected real milk from the farmer in a jug! Will be ordering more". Dorothy Drew
"Really enjoyed the milk! Will definitely come again I'm so happy that the cows get to keep their calves" Kayleigh Palmer
"I bought my kids down today and received a wonderful welcome and an absolutely amazing product. I will definitely be returning I would love to try your beef thank you very much" Simon Palmer
"We came to see you on the last day of our holiday and bought some milk, well we are now on our second order and I haven't bought any milk from any where else. It was so lovely to meet you and see cows in their natural relaxed environment, you made a lasting impression, I only wish your methods were the norm and not a rarity, thanks for the delicious milk! Kind regards" Lorna Wildblood
"This is a fantastic find. I would recommend it to everyone. The cows and calves are right there for you to see. Each has a name. They are content and this had to mean healthier milk because the cows and calves are not stressed. I get all my milk here now. Thank you Fiona". Jayne cooper
"Fantastic product, I'm loving my weekly delivery - delicious, high-welfare, calf-friendly milk, it's win win win all round!" Juliet Henney
"My first try today. Well done Fiona for fantastic milk and the caring way you produce it."
Victoria Millington said, "Just would like to thank you so much for amazingly delicious milk and super fast shipping. Only happy cows can give such of exceptional quality milk. Also thank you so much for all your hard work to keep it the way how it was intended by Nature." Jane Pulham
"I was a bit unsure about trying this milk as I am a little lactose intolerant but after drinking this milk I have had no adverse effects x It is rich and creamy and tastes so much better than shop bought milk :)" Lisa Robson
"Have just arranged for home milk delivery. I am so pleased to have found a compassionate dairy selling raw milk" Angela Brooke
"Got the chance to taste this yesterday in Blundeston at Holly Garden Nurseries Country Market, am totally converted, as is my (very sceptical high cholesterol suffering) husband! Creamy without being sickly, absolutely delicious, and amazed to find out the health benefits fresh milk can offer! Even happier to know that your cows' welfare takes priority, worth paying more for this alone! Cannot recommend highly enough" Linda Jones
"It's a pleasure to be able to enjoy your beautiful milk and support your compassionate approach to farming" Debbie Ecclestone
Just wanted to say how much we enjoyed your delicious milk! My partner, Ed, and his two children picked up a litre from you earlier in the week and it is by far the yummiest milk we have tasted! Sadly, we don't live locally otherwise we would be regular customers. If we are passing again, we will certainly call by and will recommend to all! Best of luck to you". Kind regards. Aggie Slater
"So glad I found you in bury market!! Amazing milk, so yummy and guilt free :-)" xx Megan Carr said "Delicious milk. You can taste the happiness!" Zenna Cheason
"Raw milk , produced in a fantastic way , that tastes delicious , perfect" Hugh Palmer
"So happy I can get raw milk for my family, it's delicious!! Thank you!!"
"This is brilliant. We want more farms that keep calves with their mothers whilst supplying milk". Marina "Tried your wonderful milk at Marylebone Market - hope you'll be back. Trust the farm has escaped flooding. Really appreciate what you are doing. It is really a good thing - doing things as they should be done. A little light in what sometimes seems a dark world. Very best wishes", Verina Glaessner
"Amazed and delighted to happen by your website. Goes to show you can produce ethical milk as well as contented happy cows. Well done and thank you" Maureen Sladdin
"The milk is out if this world.....supermarket milk does not even come close to the flavour of this". Rachel Pulham
"The milk was absolutely fantastic, some of the very best we have ever tried. The fact that it comes from a small independent producer, the cows are only fed on 100% grass (member of the PFLA) and that welfare is placed as the highest priority are all extremely important factors to our family so we couldn't be happier. Fantastic product. I've just placed our second order so really looking forward to that. " Kind regards, Ben
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"My sister & I visited recently and watched the milking, then tasted the milk. We were so happy to see the cows and way they are cared for, and would love to see more farms like this around the country. You are doing a wonderful job teaching people about raw milk! Thank you very much! x" Janet Hunt
"Hi, I bought some of your milk this Saturday, and I just wanted to drop you an email to say 'thank you'.
I have health problems, and am supposed to be 'bovine dairy tree', but as a veggie, I really don't like the idea that the goat kids and lambs are killed so the mums keep lactating. I bought the milk originally for my son, as he is dairy intolerant, and I had read up on raw milk and thought it might suit him. Well, I am a convert - he has transitioned from (non GM) soya milk to the raw milk no problem, and I can also drink it without any negatives. Plus, it is ethical, and i love the way you farm. Thank you for coming to BSE market, I hope you will manage to keep it in your routine, as we are outside your delivery area! I hope you settle well into your new home - it is a lovely place, one of our favourites, so we will endeavour to pop over and see you one weekend, and our kids can see how farming 'should' be done. My daughter is adamant she will eat meat when she is a grown-up (we are a veggie household), so she needs to know how to make good choices, and your set-up looks like it ticks the list!
Best wishes, and thanks again - see you Saturday!" Jane
David wrote..........: "Thank you so much for what you're doing. My wife and I, along with our children, met you today in Bury and absolutely fell in love with your raw milk. We're spreading your word and work here to our friends at RAF Lakenheath. We hope to meet you again soon and learn more about your farm, cow shares and lend you some helping hands on your farm. The children can't stop talking about your milk and they can't wait to meet your cows. Thanks again and keep up the great work". - Jennifer Crawford-Smith
"Visited last week, amazing girls doing a great job, not been that inspired for a long time." Janet Buck
"Hello Fiona, just wanted to let you know the milk arrived on Wed and we've cracked open our first bottle today, it's absolutely divine!! I used to order from Bleep who produce lovely tasty raw milk too but I started following you on facebook as am interested in your stories and ethos.. I then recently told my mum who is from Switzerland to buy your milk as she is always bemoaning how she misses her Swiss cow milk from days of yore :-) Anyway, so to cut a long story short, I decided to order from you as well, ta daa! I just did a blind tasting on my husband, your milk compared with Bleep and he guessed yours straight away, it is more creamy and tasty he said (in those exact words), and we were very happy with Bleep, it's delicious too!!! So happy cows, happy us and happy days :-) Thank you so much,, Nicola"
Fiona Provan : Calf at Foot Dairy, by Rob Elliott, 2013
"There are so many praiseworthy aspects to the work that has been done by Fiona in connection with Calf at Foot Dairy that it is difficult to know where to start. But let’s start with the name. Evocative of a time before industrialised dairy production, it tells you much of what you need to know about this little dairy and its herd. It tells you that the person who runs the dairy cares for her animals and their welfare. The clear message in the phrase ‘calf at foot’ is that the calving cows in this herd can keep their calves until weaned – a far cry from what happens to the mercilessly exploited Holstein milk machines that feed the insatiable profit-driven industrial dairy industry. That is not to say, however, that the Calf at Foot Dairy is an exercise in nostalgia or the outcome of a sentimentalised attitude to farming. Though it may seem like the epitome of hobby farming to run a herd of less than ten cows, it is nothing less than the future of farming, a microcosm of the way in which we will need to produce our food in the future, if we are to redress the harm we have done to ourselves, our agricultural land and the ecologies that connect us to that land. Through the scorched earth of a planet brought to the edge of collapse by the insanity of industrialising our food supply, we see the tiny green shoots of change. Fiona, her beautiful Jerseys and the dairy that supplies their milk are part of that necessary change. Yes, but what use is a micro dairy, we might ask? How is that going to feed the world? The answer is that this tiny dairy is a living example of how the ‘world’ will eventually be allowed to feed itself, once all its peoples have reclaimed their right to their own food sovereignty. Over the last hundred years or so, those most keenly interested in the profits to be made from the control of our food supply have purloined the means of production. Wresting it from the hands of thriving rural communities, they forced the rural dispossessed in every country on Earth to seek work in burgeoning cities, decimating the communities that once supported not only those who lived the rural life but also the city dwellers that depended on them. The result is a global food supply system dominated by a handful of predatory trans-national corporations that put profit before all else, destroying the fertility of the land, poisoning it with unwanted chemicals, killing millions of small creatures along the way and filling retail warehouses with degraded factory-produced food that is very bad for us and dangerously bad for the planet, in more ways than it is possible to discuss here. By comparison, what Fiona is doing at the Calf at Foot Dairy is more than simply the exact opposite of this. It is taking everything farmers used to know innately about good husbandry, adding the lessons learnt from the bad farming practices that have defined the last half a century, thinking with the
heart as well as the head and putting before us a small (but perfectly formed) example of how farming should be done. In defining what she does, Fiona uses the word ‘compassion.’ Some might argue that there is no room for compassion in farming but, quite simply, they are wrong. Though compassion so often takes a back seat in this egotistical age, it is vital as a fundamental idea, not just in farming, but in how we define ourselves in the greater context of life on this planet. Compassion is what will bring us back to our senses. At the Calf at Foot Dairy, Fiona’s compassion shows us a way to treat animals with respect, to nurture them and to care for the grassland that supports them. The natural source of food for these herbivores results in a natural, nutrient dense food that has helped to sustain our own species for millennia. Milk in this pure natural form is the only kind of milk that ever sustained us, and the only kind that will sustain us today. Commodity milk, that bland, thin, pasteurised, homogenised, standardised apology for real food is, frankly, worthless – as we are now seeing through the increasing numbers of people who have become ‘dairy intolerant.’ As soon as we start to meddle with natural processes, in this case by feeding cows on grain, heat-treating the milk and removing from it the vital nutritional core – the cream – we are creating another non-food. Fiona is doing the opposite. Fiona is producing a nutritionally vibrant real food that is so full of vitality that it has traditionally been used as a natural medicine. She is doing this whilst putting the welfare of her cows before anything else. Part of that welfare is allowing them the luxury of eating what nature intended – rich pasture. In doing that, she is helping the planet too, because pastureland is a wonderfully effective means of capturing carbon. By contrast, growing grain to feed to cattle is an equally effective way of contributing to our carbon emissions. Fiona’s way of farming requires no chemical fertilisers, pesticides or other poisonous chemicals. Industrial farming pours millions of tonnes of these harmful substances into the ground every year, causing damage that is studiously ignored by governments, the corporate lobby and the mainstream media. We need people like Fiona to show us there is an alternative. She may be running only a micro dairy, but she is flying a very big flag alongside others like her who have the courage to actually do something. Unbeknown to the man in the street, our industrial food system, committed to the most part to the growing of cash crops for the global market, is stretched to breaking point – something else you won’t see in the media or on the Government’s agenda. Just the total dependency of this system on the continuing supply of cheap fossil fuels puts it in jeopardy of predictable collapse within a few decades. The likely model to take the place of this global behemoth is a worldwide localised economy, particularly a localised food economy based on the idea of small-scale mixed farming.
Fiona and her Calf at Foot Dairy are in the vanguard of this change, and it is imperative that we encourage, nurture and protect her efforts to provide high quality nutritious food to her local communities. As the future unfolds, we will need more Fionas, not fewer. Although there is no way to predict accurately when the industrial food system will eventually unravel, we can say with some certainty that it is a truly unsustainable model of food production, and so its eventual demise is guaranteed, one way or another. Does it not make sense to anticipate this inevitability by thinking of ways of securing our own local food sovereignty? To invest in Fiona and the Calf at Foot Dairy is to invest in something priceless. Small is beautiful, as E F Schumacher pointed out exactly 40 years ago, and the world’s leading thinkers are now finally catching up with that idea. Small is also profitable, in that it can generate a comfortable living and a debt-free life for someone who understands the meaning of the word ‘enough.’ Small is self-contained, local, friendly, community conscious and environmentally sustainable. In Fiona’s case, this is not simply a nebulous concept – she is proving that it can work. Fiona is the future, and we will all need brave people like her to specialise in the production of nutritious food as a thriving part of our future localised economies".
