Glyn Woolley, chairman of Corsham-based Coombe Castle International, has been given a lifetime achievement award by one of the British cheese industry’s leading bodies.

The British Cheese Board made the award to Mr Woolley, whose company is a specialist producer and exporter of high quality dairy produce, at the Royal Bath and West Show in Somerset.

The award for Mr Woolley comes only two months after Coombe Castle International won a Queen’s Award for International Trade, the company’s third since 2001.

Nigel White, secretary of the British Cheese Board, presented the award in recognition of the significant contribution 68-year-old Mr Woolley has made to the British cheese industry though his work over 38 years.

Responding to the honour, Mr Woolley said: “Coombe Castle has won many awards over the years but this one means more than anything else because it’s recognition by my friends and comrades in the industry of the ambassadorial role I’ve always tried to play for British cheese.”

Speaking about his passion for exporting British cheese, Mr Woolley added: “Having grown up on a farm in West Wales, I have always appreciated the hardships that farmers go through. That’s why nothing gives me greater pleasure in exporting than getting an order from Japan, Korea or the United States for a West Country farmhouse cheese.

"The order might be small in the great scheme of things, but that farmer’s pride knowing his cheese is being bought overseas is immense.”

Born in Lancashire and raised in West Wales, Mr Woolley began his career in the dairy industry in 1965 as a management trainee with Unigate. After moves to St Ivel and then Cow & Gate, where he learned about exporting dairy products, he founded Coombe Caste International in 1980 on his farm in Corsham.

The company took a major step forward in 1984 when Coombe Castle bought the Double Devon Cream Company from Unigate.

Today, Coombe Castle employs 30 people and exports its own cream and also butter and cheese products from a range of farms, creameries and dairies to more than 40 countries. The company is due to move to larger premises in Western Way, Melksham later this year having secured a £1 million investment from Barclays.

Well-known brands exported by the company include cheeses such as Stinking Bishop and Colliers Welsh; a range of creams plus butter from Devon, Wales and goats’ butter.