Hailsham farm wins award for its yoghurt

By Anna Bailey

AN organic food company has been celebrating its success in the' food and drink Oscars.
Court Lodge Organics in Hailsham won a bronze award for its Organic Blackcurrant Drinking Yoghurt at the prestigious Great Taste Awards.
David and Marian Harding, who run the farm said they were 'delighted' with the award.
Marian said, 'We were very pleased when we found out.
"We have actually been making the blackcurrant flavour for three years, but hadn't submitted it for the awards because I thought that it was quite an unusual taste as it is quite strong and is very distinctive.'
This isn't the first time that the couple have won one of the awards, which'are regarded as the world's most prestigious and authoritative food competition for fine food and drink.
In 2004 they won a bronze for the Cranberry and Raspberry drink, and silver for the Natural Pouring Yoghurt at the awards, organised by the Guild of Fine Food Retailers.
'I think the main thing is that the products haven't been processed and are made with fresh milk which comes straight from the cow and then straight into the vat.
'It doesn't taste as watery and is obviously very nutritious .
'When I first started out, I was governed by the ingredients that were available, but now there is a much bigger range of organic food out there.'

David and Marian have been organically farming for the past five years and first had the idea for making the yoghurt drinks whilst travelling in Holland.
'They have a lot of yoghurt drinks and dairy products there which we don't seem to have in this country, so that was really the inspiration behind it.
'We also became interested in probiotics and obviously producing the drinks is a way of adding value to our milk.
'I had always made yoghurt here on the farm anyway, so it seemed a natural step.'
The couple produce a wide variety of their own special brand of healthy yoghurt based smoothies and pouring yoghurts which use organic milk from their pedigree herd and Marian has found that people are becoming more interested in organic products ...
'People are slowly starting to latch onto it, especially those who lead busy lives. 'They can have a bottle of the drinking yoghurt for breakfast on the go as it is still
filling and healthy. / ,
'Children also like them, especially the blackcurrant and the strawberry flavours, and they are ideal for lunchboxes.
'People keep asking for new flavours and we. will soon be introducing banana by popular request.'