The company is owned jointly by Susan Fiander-Woodhouse and her husband Gerry Woodhouse. Susan is the MD and manages the company on the day-to-day basis and is also responsible for all the food safety and legal responsibilities and accounting. Gerry is the main cheesemaker and also organises stock, deliveries, sets up the shows, logistics and is the company engineer.
Our daughter Charlotte is the HR & Production Manager and currently on maternity leave.
Susan’s personal qualifications are as follows: Cheese manufacture and grading, external and internal auditing, leadership, managing diversity and equality, business management, Customer Care and a sense of Place.
The Blaenafon Cheddar Company has been established in accordance with our local environmental health team, having scored 5 every year for food compliance. We hold our EEC licence and work within our quality management system to ensure product safety and traceability at all times.
We pride ourselves on the work it does for international tourism for Wales. This involves exhibiting at many major events and festivals, working with TV and media worldwide and always being on duty even on days off!
We have starred in ‘Secret Supper club’ channel 4, ITV ‘Food Glorious Food’, BBC ‘Country File’ with Mat Baker & Coast & Country. One of the most amazing highlights to date was to star on ‘Gino & Mel Do Christmas with Warwick Davies’ on ITV. We filmed with Dragons Den 2018, but that is another story and thanks to Touker Suleyman we are expanding without giving away any family shares in the business.
The Company’s lists of recent awards are: International Cheese awards 2018; Gold: Taffy Apple, cheddar, Highly Commended for Europe’s Best New Dairy Product and Europe’s Best Tourism Product. Countryside Alliance Rural Business Awards 2018 – Welsh Champion. Monmouthshire Business Awards 2017 – Food Business of Excellence, Cardiff Business awards – Food Producer of excellence.
Tourism Ambassador – Visit Wales 2006, True Taste of Wales – 2007, 2009 & 2012, British Cheese Medals 2007 & 2010. Great Taste medals: 2 Gold stars for ‘Dragons Breath’ in 2012 and 1 Gold Star for our Oak Smoked Goats Cheese in 2013.
The Gang
Susan Fiander-Woodhouse – Managing Director
aka, (Lady Cheddar). co-owner director of Blaenafon Cheddar.
List of roles includes: HR, Accountant, Quality Manager, Secretary, Purchasing Manager, Sales Manager, Planning, Shows and Events, Media, NPD, & TV Personality.
Susan was born in Walton-on-Thames London to a Welsh mother & Cornish father. She moved to Wales in 1976 and regards herself as being born on the wrong side of the Severn bridge, which wasn’t her fault. Having lived in Blaenavon for most of her life she considers herself a local. She is Mother of 3 children, Linda, Terence and Charlotte.
Linda: Susan’s Eldest is married to Adam. They have 3 children, Chloe, Kyle and Bella.
Son Terence married Natasha and have 2 children Willow and Madelyn.
Charlotte is partner to Ross and they have Theo and Odin.
Susan and Gerry have an acre Smallholding in Blaenafon where they have 1 dog, 2 Horses, 1 cat, 12 chickens, 2 Guinea pigs, 1 Cockatiels, 3 fish & the last WELSH DRAGON called Shrek. He breathes the breath into the Dragons Breath Chili cheddar. In her spare time susan loves getting the grandchildren wet and muddy, fishing, walking, geocaching, kayaking and generally mucking around and embarrassing the kids. Plus, her holidays visiting other beautiful locations.
Susan’s father died in 2003 before the business was started. Susan has some ashes of her father in a capsule. He joins in on family occasions, business meetings and holidays. He has probably travelled more miles dead than when he was alive.
Gerry Woodhouse – Operations Director
Gerry also has a multitude of tasks within the company. This is the beauty of a real family business as all the roles are quite flexible within the family members. Gerry’s driving and navigation skills enable us to make quick efficient deliveries and collections. His engineering background also means that we rarely have to call an engineer into work, thus cutting down expenses.
Gerry and Susan married in 2003 at Caldicot Castle, Chepstow, Wales. Gerry Has 2 sons which between both Gerry and Susan make a gang of 5 kids.
Daniel is Gerry’s eldest son and is married to Samantha. They have a son William. Daniel has taken on the task of managing this website.
Jaymie is Gerry’s youngest son and is partner to Star. Between them they have 3 children Bella, Alaric and Jemmy.
When Gerry has 5 minutes to relax, and is not mending, fixing or building hot tubs at home (Susan’s home development project) he loves to find a nice stretch of water and fish. Gerry can also be found skulking around in the wilderness Geocaching, sometimes susan joins in or the younger family members.
It is a fantastic way to get outside in the countryside as a family and helps teach the children about the outdoors, mapping and lots of other interesting things. Geocaching is hunting down a cache which has been hidden in the environment and using either mobile phones, GPS or traditional maps you set of to find it. Information about the sport can be found at www.geocaching.com. Good luck!
Kayaking and exploring foreign lands are also part of Gerry’s relaxation, so it’s a good job that Susan enjoys the same things as well.
Charlotte Hill – HR & Production Director
Charlotte is our youngest daughter, entrepreneur and Chief Cheese Maker.
Her skills developed at an early age of 18 and she is the youngest person to have won a medal at the British Cheese awards for her Apple Charlotte Cheddar, which she made in memory of her Grandfather Peter Fiander. He would have been very proud. Charlotte was born on his 60th Birthday and was the Apple of his eye. He called her his Apple Charlotte Princes, he would never believe she could do anything wrong. And of course, Charlotte is adamant that she never did.
Qualified in both Business Management and Customer service, she will play a big part in taking Blaenafon Cheddar through into its next phase. She has an excellent creative flair and the addition of our Advent calendar ’12 Days of Cheesemas’ was Charlottes project.
She has a wonderful supportive partner called Ross who helps out also within the business when he can.
Charlotte is very business driven and helped the business survive through COVID-19 by adjusting the business accordingly, this entails:
A knock and drop delivery service of our produce
Luxurious Platters
Date night boxes and hampers
She did amazing!