It's ten years since Shaun Young and his now-wife Rebecca, who grew up on a family farm that supplied milk to the supermarkets, launched Estate Dairy. Over the decade, it's grown to a £26 million-a-year business, which has been profitable from day one and employs 80 people.
Today its milk, cultured butter, and yoghurt are served at the Ritz, Claridge’s and on board Qatar Airways, as well as on the shelves of Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer.
“But the idea didn’t arrive as a grand plan, it crept in,” Shaun explains. “One Christmas back in Cheshire, Rebecca’s dad mentioned how difficult it was to make a living from milk and half-jokingly suggested that if we were set on staying in London, maybe we could find a way to do something different with it. We laughed it off, but it stayed with us.”
The inexperienced pair spent months visiting farms around Britain, “learning as much as we could about milk and dairy. We were looking for milk with higher fat and protein levels, and farmers who cared about how their milk was produced, but convincing anyone to work with us was hard.
“We had no customers and no track record, and milk is a farmer’s livelihood - I understood the reluctance. Eventually, one farmer agreed to supply us in small volumes, and that was enough to get started.”
When The Estate Dairy launched in 2016, it was funded by £5000 savings and Shaun selling his car. Initially the brand solely stocked coffee shops: “we did all the deliveries ourselves overnight, and admin in the day, and learned as we went. Demand grew quickly, but capacity didn’t, so the early years were intense. The specialty coffee community is incredibly supportive, and word spread through cafés talking to each other. For the first eight years, every new customer came through recommendation rather than paid marketing.”
Early breakthroughs included London coffee chain Notes and office group WeWork choosing Estate Dairy’s milk. “From there, trust built slowly and opened doors with more demanding kitchens too: we began supplying Michelin-starred restaurants such as The Ledbury, as well as hotels including The Ritz.” The upmarket milk “sold itself,” Shaun says, and the duo expanded into butter and cream - but plenty of mistakes were made on the way.
In 2019, Estate Dairy launched a chocolate milk, and one batch went “badly wrong,” he remembers. “A reaction between the cocoa powder and the milk made it sour and the pressure in the machine built up. We ended up with lids blowing off bottles in Selfridges. It was pretty terrifying at the time, but thankfully nobody got hurt and it taught us a hard lesson about not trying to do too much, too quickly, and about how careful you have to be when you’re scaling something as sensitive as dairy.”
In 2024, the brand went into retail, after being approached by Ocado and Marks & Spencer about stocking its one-litre milk in glass bottles. “Sainsbury’s followed later that year. Seeing our milk appear as the most expensive option on the shelf was slightly nerve-racking, but sales were strong, and Sainsbury’s has since increased its orders.”
The duo - who still own 80% of the business - are now focusing on consolidating production in Cheshire, including opening a new £2.5 million yogurt facility. The Youngs aren't chasing a particular exit. "We want to continue building depth rather than chasing rapid expansion," says Shaun, "working closely with farmers, chefs, cafés, and retailers who value quality and consistency." Patience, the duo reckon, might be their most-important ingredient.
