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Gold Top Channel Island Milk

The iconic milk bottle with the gold top first graced British doorsteps over 50 years ago although the exact year seems shrouded in the mists of time. While the year of Gold Top’s arrival on our door steps is unclear, there are records of Jersey and Guernsey cows being brought from the islands to mainland Britain in around 1741. (If anybody knows when the first Gold Top milk bottle was delivered please let us know!) Deregulations in milk laws in the 1970’s gave over 400 British farmers with Jersey and Guernsey herds the opportunity to register the Gold Top name. Together they formed the Quality Milk Producers to promote the milk that comes from their pedigree herds of Jersey and Guernsey cows. The milk is rich, creamy and golden as well as naturally high in protein and calcium. Today their Gold Top range of quality dairy products includes milk, cream and butter and is available in major supermarkets – you can even buy yoghurt and ice cream made from Gold Top milk. In a dairy market where consumers are often advised to buy skimmed or semi-skimmed milk, our challenge is to encourage consumers to choose full fat, creamy Gold Top milk. We recognise that consumers might see the milk as a luxury item and so position Gold Top as a treat that makes the perfect ingredient for an indulgent occasion. Our recipes using Gold Top milk and cream which are proving incredibly popular with regional newspapers, consumer magazines and specialist food titles which have allowed us to build awareness of Gold Top as a luxurious cooking ingredient. To date we have run two cookery classes for food journalists to showcase the advantages of cooking with the milk in our recipes. We also run seasonal competitions to tie in with recipe features to give readers the chance to win a month’s supply of Gold Top milk together with a state-of-the-art kitchen appliance - such an ice-cream maker or a food processor! The agency arranged sponsorship for the second year running of CookIt!, a children’s cookery competition run by the Guild of Food Writers, to emphasise Gold Top as a cooking essential amongst foodies, families and key food writers. Every year the competition finals are covered by BBC Good Food magazine and all the finalists are interviewed by their regional newspapers and radio stations. In 2009, the CookIt! winner went on to face a cookery challenge on Blue Peter. Finalists in the competition have faced the challenge of preparing their dishes to be judged by the likes of Stefan Gates of CBBC’s Gastronuts, top TV chef Valentine Warner and Mike Robinson of The Pot Kiln. The Guild of Food Writers continues to work with us to take the competition forward with the Gold Top milk brand. As the sponsor since 2009, the Gold Top brand has featured prominently in all competition press material and on the Guild of Food Writers website. To date the sponsorship has secured coverage across national, regional and broadcast media reaching a total circulation over 5,000,000. With the current interest in buying British and supporting local producers in the UK, we are selling in local hero features to raise the profile of the British farmers behind Gold Top milk. So far, we have successfully placed stories in regional and national newspapers highlighting various Quality Milk Producer farmers - each with their own story to tell about the Gold Top brand, their Jersey and Guernsey dairy farms and the dairy industry. You can find out more about the milk and get the latest news updates at www.gold-top.co.uk.

Staff Profile: Becky Wong