Britain’s largest organic dairy brand Yeo Valley is benefitting from an ultra-fast, ultra-reliable full-fibre broadband service across its multiple rural sites thanks to Bath-based broadband provider Truespeed.
Family-owned Yeo Valley, best known for its range of organic yogurts, previously relied on no slow, unreliable copper (ADSL) phone lines for its broadband needs.
Now, after teaming up with Truespeed, the Somerset-based firm has gigabit-capable connectivity with guaranteed symmetrical upload/download speeds of 250Mbps at six sites, including its dairy farms, headquarters, and a garden tearoom open to visitors to its organic garden.
Another four sites are due to come on stream over the next few months.
The Truespeed network is enabling Yeo Valley staff to remotely monitor and manage milk production and feeding at the dairy farms, enjoy glitch-free video meetings and run massive data backups in a timely fashion.
Meanwhile visitors to the organic garden and tearoom in Blagdon are benefiting from great internet connectivity while admiring the flowers and sampling the cakes.
Yeo Valley also plans to connect new CCTV cameras at the two farms to the Truespeed network to monitor livestock.
The firm’s link-up with Truespeed, which included granting access to existing ducting on its land to build the network, means neighbouring communities also have access to faster broadband.
Yeo Valley IT manager Anthony Roper said: “The Truespeed full fibre service has made a huge difference to Yeo Valley. Before the switch we were forever struggling with slow, unreliable broadband but now we have guaranteed symmetrical upload/download speeds of 250Mbps.
“This means we can get on with running our business instead of having to deal with regular broadband dropouts.”
Truespeed CEO Evan Wienburg added: “Connecting the best of this country’s rural businesses like Yeo Valley to our state-of-the-art broadband service underlines the importance of our full fibre roll out.
“With our dedicated fibre-optic connection, businesses and households have the opportunity to not just level up their broadband but to benefit from one of the fastest, most reliable services available in the UK today.”
Truespeed was launched in 2014 by three investors fed up with poor broadband in their homes and three years later secured a £75m investment from Aviva Investors.
It has since been on a mission to bring what it calls left-behind towns, cities and rural communities across the South West the benefits of affordable, full fibre broadband direct to their doors.
The firm’s community ethos also extends to providing free broadband for life to local primary schools and community hubs passed by its network.
Yeo Valley was established in 1994 and is now managed by the second generation of the founding Mead family. It operates two organic farms with its own herd of British Friesian cows.
The UK’s 14th biggest-selling online grocery brand in the UK, according to The Grocer, last year it was voted the nation’s ‘favourite organic brand’ by readers of Good Housekeeping in the 2020 Food Awards.
