Simon Lacey has worked in the food industry for over 20 years as a Chef , Butcher and Baker, and is passionate about good food.

In 2004 Simon became Dairy Assistant at the Swaledale Cheese Company, a well established local cheese producer. Here he began his love affair with cheese and progressed to the position of Manager, learning his craft from the late David Reed for whom he had huge admiration and respect.

Simon soon began to dream of making his own cheese (well they do say cheese makes you dream!) and, with the support of his partner Amanda, put together the blue-print for his own enterprise - Laceys Cheese.

Simon says "I didn't want to copy the Swaledale cheese but make a cheese of my own and develop new subtleties of flavour".

The big opportunity came for Simon with the Richmond Station regeneration project where space was being rented to artisan food producers. The Station Trust were impressed with Simon's enthusiasm, and accepted his proposals for Laceys Cheese in November 2007.

Since then Simon has been busy arranging for the fit-out in his unit, purchasing equipment and sourcing the natural ingredients from local suppliers that will be used in making his own range of traditional and contemporary cheeses.