Ceri Cryer, 37, is the founder of the multiple award-winning Brinkworth Dairy, which has been nominated for a Best Artisan Producer title in the Great British Cheese Awards. Its unsalted butter has been shortlisted in the Great British Food Awards. Mother-of-three Ceri is married to Chad, with whom she built up the business after starting it at her parents’ farm 10 years ago.

MY dream when I was little,” said Ceri Cryer, “was to be a Blue Peter presenter. That’s what I would have loved to have done.

“After I left university I wanted to work in television. I would like to have been a wildlife presenter – that would have been really cool.”

Ceri went as far as work experience with BBC Natural History in Bristol and the BBC’s fledgling online presence. Finding the broadcasting world very hard to break into, she went into teaching and then into business – only to find herself regularly on the air.

“Through being involved in the cheese-making business there have still been plenty of opportunities to do my little bits on telly. We’ve been on Countryfile and we’ve been on CNN international most recently. We’ve done BBC Radio Four – the Today Programme with Nick Robinson.”

Ceri is descended from an old Wiltshire family which gave its name to villages including Collingbourne Ducis. One ancestor, William Collingborn or Collingbourne, wrote a scurrilous rhyming couplet about Richard III and was hanged, drawn and quartered for his efforts. As his heart was cut out he is said to have exclaimed: “Oh Lord Jesus! Yet more trouble!”

The family has farmed at Brinkworth for more than a century and pioneered the use of Friesian cattle.

Ceri studied biology at Oxford and teaching at Cambridge. Her husband, Chad, also worked as a teacher.

“In 2005 I was teaching at Hardenhuish School and not enjoying it. My husband was teaching in Pucklechurch, the Bristol young offenders’ institution.

“Because Chad hadn’t had the experience of growing up on a dairy farm he looked at it with fresh eyes and said, ‘Let’s do Bee World, a bee theme park,’ and I said: ‘Let’s not!’ “But I had been on a cheese-making course with dad, so that seemed like the really logical diversion, a really good way to add value to the milk.”

Adding that value is crucial.

She said: “It’s really hard to be a successful dairy farmer with a traditional farm. If the cheese business wasn’t here we would have sold up the cows by now. The price we get paid for our milk is ridiculous – it’s something like 13p a litre, and costs of production are close to 30p per litre, so you’re making a loss by sending milk from the farm.

“The only way it’s working is that we’re processing it through Brinkworth Dairy as milk, cream, yoghurt, cheese, butter and ice cream.

“That makes the herd viable and gives a point to why we’re doing this, so the more we can develop the dairy the more viable the herd is.”

“The countryside around us is the way it is because of dairy farming, but so many dairy farms are going out of business.”

Ceri’s first cheese-making experiments were in the farmhouse kitchen, and were successful enough to allow operations to be switched to a converted barn.

Professional cheese-maker and former chef Lewis Williams was added to the team three years ago.

Every week the dairy produces 60kg of traditional Wiltshire Loaf cheese using authentic production methods detailed in a scarce book called Forgotten Harvest. Ceri sought out and befriended the author, Avice R Wilson.

There is also 60kg a week of Brinkworth Blue, about 30kg of softer Royal Bassett Blue – 3,000 of these cheeses were sent to Royal Ascot – and about 45 150-gram garlic and pepper cheeses.

“We’re taking milk from a single herd. What they’re eating, the time of year, the temperature, the humidity all affects that milk.

“There’s going to be variability in our raw material that we work hard to counteract for a consistent product, but I think those potentials for differences in flavours coming right through from the grass have more of a chance to shine through coming from a single herd.

“If you’re taking milk from a large variety of sources then you’ve got a blander starter product.

and the potential for variations in our starting product can give rise to something really original and tasty.

“It’s a hand-made cheese, and all of that hand-turning is really important. We’re turning the curds for five minutes, resting for 10 minutes, stirring for five minutes, resting for 10 minutes. It’s really labour intensive.”

but we’re doing it gently by hand rather than with a machine, and I think that makes the cheeses extra creamy.”

Ceri is a fan of the classic business book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R Covey.

And what would be her own advice to would-be businesspeople?

“Have a cold shower and think about it!

“There is so much to be learned and so much advice out there. There are people doing this already. Make friends with them; learn from them.

“The chamber of commerce was really useful to me when I started out. There’s a lot of help out there for starting a business.

“You’ve got your own set of skills and that’s what’s motivating you to do your project, but there are other skills that you will need help for. You might even have to pay for it. For example, my skill is not running a payroll, so I pay my accountants to do that.

“The inspiration, the special thing, your skill – that’s what you do. I think a really good way to build a business is to build it as if you are McDonald’s. You don’t want to be McDonald’s but you want to build a business. Then it becomes less scary.”

The Brinkworth Dairy website is brinkworthdairy.co.uk