Doing it their whey

David Finlay and his wife Wilma have spent their lives running his family’s farm and earlier this year sold their successful ice cream brand to focus on their cheese making business, the Ethical Dairy. Their long-standing contribution to tourism in region was recognised last year when they won the Silver Thistle at the national Thistle Awards. The Finlays talked to food writer Cat Thomson about their more sustainable approach to food production and their cow-with-calf dairy method.

David Finlay is the third generation of his family to live and work at Rainton Farm, near Castle Douglas. Since taking over in 1992, David and his wife Wilma have diversified the farm moving from conventional farming to organic methods, made extensive changes to encourage biodiversity, and were early adopters of renewable energy, and installed a wind turbine. They also set up a popular visitor attraction, Cream O’ Galloway and launched an ice cream brand.

In January 2024 they sold the Cream O’Galloway brand. The couple wanted to solely concentrate their energy on their Ethical Dairy brand, which uses milk from their cow-with-calf dairy to make a range of artisan cheeses.

Change of direction

David and Wilma first realised they wanted to take their business in a new direction back in 2007. Wilma says, “I think it was David who was the first to say, ‘We’re making an unsustainable product.’ Once you accept that oil is a finite resource how can you justify, either financially or socially, using fossil fuels to make ice cream? The process involves buying ingredients from all around the world. We then heat those ingredients up, cool the mixture down, freeze it, and then hold it in cold stores, refrigerated vehicles, shops and home freezers. We also quickly agreed that the product we should be focusing on for the future should be cheese.”

Wilma explains, “Back in David’s father’s days, the farm had made 15 tonnes of cheese a year until production stopped in 1971. The milk was taken straight from the cow to the cheese vat without being pasteurised. Once the cheese was made, it was stored in ambient conditions without refrigeration. There was very little energy used – apart from lots of physical energy – so surely, we could do the same again?”

Failure before success

It took time to raise over a million pounds to invest in upgrading the cow shed and milking parlour as well as converting a derelict building into a cheese-making dairy. At the same time, they decided they should introduce cow-with-calf dairy farming. Their goal was to put an end to the standard industry practice of removing dairy calves from their mothers soon after birth, which members of the public increasingly questioned on their farm tours.

In 2012 their first attempt failed after five months. After the painful decision to stop was made, David says, “A weight lifted off my shoulders as my heart broke. The cows were stressed even though they had their calves, they didn’t want to go into the parlour and the calves drank almost all the milk.” This failure pushed the couple to the brink emotionally and financially. So, after making considerable changes, they tried again in 2016, embarking on a three-year pilot.

This time they succeeded despite numerous setbacks, publicly committing to the cow-with-calf dairy permanently in 2019. Now the calves stay with their mothers until they are five or six months old. They have a special calf-friendly area that the cows cannot access, and from around two to three months the calves stay overnight in this calf bedroom and they then rejoin their mothers in the morning after milking.

Happy cows and staff

David says, “The cows love this system, and the guys like working here because they just feel good about it.” Standing watching a shed filled with cows and calves contently interacting, David gestures and says, “That’s our marketing department.”

The herd are cross-bred Montbéliarde, Holstein and Viking Red cows. He explains, “We selectively breed big confident cows that are doing well in this system. We breed them for temperament; if a cow is stressed, she won’t give us milk. It is as simple as that.”

The Ethical Dairy brand

In 2018 Wilma and David launched The Ethical Dairy brand which nailed their colours to the mast. The milk they produce is sold to make the same award-winning ice cream and to provide raw milk to make Ethical Dairy’s range of cheeses. Cheesemakers on-site make Finlay’s original Cheddar, Carrick, Laganory, Rainton Tomme, Garnie, Fleet Valley Blue, Barlocco Blue, Skinny Gold and Skinny Red and a limited-edition Bluebell cheese.

Cheese making 101

The stone barn where they make cheese was derelict, but today visitors can peer in through viewing windows watching the entire process. The herd’s unpasteurised milk is brought directly from the milking parlour in a mini tanker which is then pumped into the cheese-making room when it is still warm. It is then turned into cheese, by the careful addition of starter culture and rennet.

David explains, “In the past rennet would have come from a calf’s stomach but now we use a vegetarian plant-based version. When the milk turns into curds it is then cut into 1cm cubes. The whey is then drained off and it goes into our anaerobic digester. The curd is left sitting in the tank and is then lifted out and put into the cheese moulds and then pressed.” The cheese is then carefully stored to mature. He adds, “We are dealing with living organisms, the cheeses are alive as my cows, and they have to be treated with respect.”

Cheese making courses

Now as well as selling cheese to wholesalers, they have loyal customers who buy directly online. You can take a farm tour to witness for yourself cow-with-calf dairying in action, or book onto a day-long cheesemaking course run by Jayne Herron, the farm’s Sales and Marketing Assistant. Herron is originally from Bedford and moved to the South of Scotland in 2010. The cheesemaking course is very relaxed and on it, you will learn how to make two kinds of cheese: ricotta and hard cheese. The hard cheese needs to be matured at home for two months before being sampled. The entire process is fun, informative, and surprisingly easy.

Herron explains how the Rainton Farm and Dumfries and Galloway have captured her heart, ”I’ve been to lots of places in Scotland before and I’ve enjoyed them, but I’ve not fallen in love with them quite as much as I did here.”

David and Wilma Finlay are known for not following the herd when it comes to conventional dairy farming, and it is a fair guess The Ethical Dairy will be making delicious-tasting cheese until the cows come home.

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