Luxury yoghurts are in a jar you can return

A new farm business is set to make its presence felt in the yoghurt market with a luxury brand conceived as an antidote to low milk prices.

Môniog (Anglesey Live Yogurts) last week made its Royal Welsh debut – and immediately started taking orders.

The premium product was created by dairy farmers Glyn and Vanessa Owen, who opted for yoghurt as a diversification venture after spotting a gap in the market.

“We had a look at a variety of options, including raw milk, and examined what else was around in Gwynedd and Anglesey,” said Vanessa, a part-time maths and English lecturer at Coleg Menai, Holyhead.

“There didn’t seem to be anyone producing yoghurts other than Daffodil Foods in Pwllheli, which has a very different market to the one we are targeting.”

The couple saw the venture as a way of adding value to the milk they produce from 120 mostly Holstein-Friesian cows at 250acre Graiglwyd Ganol, Valley.

All grass-fed, they are milked by son Gwion, 23, a former Glynllifon student, who prefers cows to yoghurt cultures. He has two sisters – Glesni is studying a nursing degree while Cari is still at college.

Vanessa said the farm was very much a family concern and they didn’t want to climb on the production treadmill.

“There’s so much pressure in farming to get bigger and bigger,” she said.

“We don’t want to expand – we’d rather focus on adding value to our milk.”

With help from Cywain, the agri-food initiative, they began experimenting with textures and flavours at Coleg Menai’s Food Technology Centre, Llangefni.

Friends and relatives readily volunteered for sampling duties, and a shortlist of products was consumer tested at last year’s Anglesey Show.

Getting the best feedback were two live yoghurt flavours – Anglesey Honey (Mêl o Fôn) and Marmalade. Both were featured on the Cywain stand at Llanwelwedd last week, with a plain yoghurt.

The honey version is destined to become a favourite and the Owen family has high hopes for its marmalade yoghurt, too.

“Welsh Lady Marmalade in Pwllheli did a special batch for us, with a soft rind, and that went down really well in our sampling.

Other than natural sugars, no other sweeteners are added – a nod to concerns over the sugar content of many mass-produced food products.

Glyn and Vanessa hope their Môniog yoghurts will be environmentally conscious as well as stylish – they are in eye-catching glass pots that customers will be encouraged to return for reuse.