Our Story
The Hook family have been farming in East Sussex for over 250 years. Father and son, Phil and Steve Hook, have been in partnership at Longleys Farm in Hailsham since 1991, and began farming fully organically in 2000. However, Phil and Steve realised that, at 25p per litre, their cows’ milk was valued too little by the dairy industry – so, in 2007, they decided to secure a raw milk licence and begin selling milk directly to the public instead.
Our very first milk round consisted of filling twelve bottles from a drum in the farmhouse kitchen and delivering them around Hailsham in Phil’s Volvo Estate! Through word of mouth, the delivery round grew exponentially, which later led to the investment of a bottling machine, a traditional milk float and a full-time milkman!
Over the next couple of years, we began expanding our product range with the introduction of raw cream and raw butter, and we discovered that the demand for raw, grass-fed dairy lived beyond just Hailsham. We started milk rounds in Eastbourne, Hastings and Lewes; we began attending farmers’ and food markets in London, including the prestigious Borough Market, where we now have a permanent shop! We also became the first farm to start a courier delivery service for raw milk, so that our dairy products could be enjoyed by people up and down the country.
The farm gained further notoriety as the subject of the 2013 release of The Moo Man, an independent documentary film about a year on the farm. The film featured in several festivals, including the prestigious Sundance Film Festival 2013 in the US, and gave viewers a sense of both the struggles and joys of working on a dairy farm. You can watch the trailer and buy/stream the film here.
The farm continued to grow over the next few years with the launch of more new products: ghee, the groundbreaking raw yoghurt, and delicious grass-fed, grass-finished beef and rose veal. However, the farm hit a major stumbling block in April 2018 when one of our cows failed her TB test. This meant we had to stop selling raw milk overnight, despite there being no trace at all of TB in the cow post-mortem. That week, we bought a pasteuriser and began selling our own pasteurised milk to our very loyal and understanding customer base.
A year later, we regained our TB-free status and we now sell pasteurised dairy alongside our popular raw dairy. In 2023, we opened our own flagship dairy shop in London's Borough Market and, as of today, demand for our produce has never been higher. We are always looking for new ways to grow the business and to show people how important dairy, especially raw dairy, is to the world!