EJ Lacey & Sons – dairy farming

EJ Lacey & Sons: Local dairy milks LEADER grant

Brothers Daniel and Gideon Lacey are the seventh generation of Lacey’s farming at Bolter End near Marlow. But the family-run dairy of E J Lacey & Sons only began bottling and home-delivering its creamy Guernsey milk and farm-fresh eggs as an experiment in 2007.

The pilot venture was an overnight sensation and the brothers quickly found themselves victims of their own success, unable to process enough milk to satisfy growing customer demand.

We have been bottling and labelling all of our milk by hand and our hard-working team just couldn’t keep up. We needed to scale-up to meet customer demand.
Daniel Lacey
EJ Lacey & Sons

With the help of a £40,000 LEADER farm diversification grant, the dairy is now installing a fully mechanised bottling plant and purchasing a new refrigerated delivery van which together should allow for a fourfold increase in home and shop deliveries, as well as increasing supplies to the farm shop.

Nick Phillips, LEADER Programme Manager, said; “Farm diversification is a major focus for the LEADER grant scheme and we were pleased to be able to help the Lacey’s expand their successful project. I would encourage any other Chilterns farmers looking to diversify to talk to us about grants to see if together we can help them to deliver similar success.”

£5 million will be available between now and 2013 in the Chilterns and Aylesbury Vale and rural Milton Keynes areas. The funding is targeted to support farmers in diversification adding value to tourism, timber and exciting projects that will benefit local communities.  For those looking to find out about the LEADER fund please visit the LEADER Programme website.

Grant £40,000

Partners

• Bedfordshire County Council
• Chilterns Conservation Board
• Chilterns District Council
• National Farmers Union

Funders

LEADER funding is part of the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE). Money for LEADER grants comes from the European Union via the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA).

What is the LEADER Programme?

LEADER is a scheme for delivering and exciting new source of funding for farmers, foresters, rural business and community organisations. The funding is part of the Rural Development Programme for England.  £5 million has been secured for allocation to local projects between now and 2013. The funding is targeted mainly to support farmers in diversification adding value to tourism, timber and exciting projects that will benefit local communities.  Projects have been supported in areas such as developing new farm businesses, community run shops, and equestrian businesses.