FDBusiness.com

A Yorkshire Wolds farm diversification business has won two rural business awards within a fortnight of each other. Wold Newton-based T Mellor and Son won the Outstanding Rural Diversification Project category at the Amazon and CLA sponsored national Rural Business Awards and the Diversification category of the inaugural Yorkshire Post Rural Awards for its Wold Top Brewery, Agricola Bottling and Muddy Souls Events businesses.

Of the national award, Tom Mellor from Tom Mellor & Son said: “We’ve had a great experience participating in the Rural Business Awards and to come out with a prize really is the icing on the cake. There were some unbelievable candidates in the Outstanding Rural Diversification Project category, winning really is testament to the hard work and commitment from our team since we began our journey in 2003.”

Awards programme co-founder Anna Price said: “As farm owners across Britain are all too aware, times are tough. It’s hard to make traditional agricultural businesses pay the bills as once they did, which has a severe knock-on effect on the rural way of life we hold so dear. That is why diversification is such an important category of our awards. With typical rural spirit, farmers are not taking the harsh economic climate lying down, but are thinking outside the box as to how to make the most of their natural assets and create some fabulously innovative and successful businesses. T Mellor and Son is a wonderful example of just this, and they were a worthy winner in our diversification category.”

The Mellors founded Wold Top Brewery in 2003 and in 2010 they launched specialist bottling business, Agricola bottling to service the brewery. A further diversification business, Muddy Souls Events was launched in 2013.

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Gill and Tom Mellor at the Rural Business Awards