Cathedral City Cheddar

Cathedral City is produced from one twenty five year old recipe at Davidstow in Cornwall, which has neither city status, nor any cathedral.[2] However, the brand’s original owners, Mendip Foods, were based in the cathedral city of Wells in Somerset. Dairy Crest bought the brand, from Mendip Foods Ltd, in July 1995.[3][4]

Dairy Crest announced an integrated marketing campaign, designed to drive growth for Cathedral City, in October 2007, which it has called The Big Cheese Tease.[5][6] The next advertising slogan Cathedral City Cheese used was “Mature, yet mellow”. Cathedral City was cited in research, published by the British Medical Journal, highlighting the fact that branded cheeses generally had higher salt content than supermarket own brands.[7]

Saputo bought Dairy Crest in July 2019, the purchase being announced in February 2019.[8][9] As of January 2021, the cheese is manufactured at Davidstow Creamery and matured at the distribution centre at Nuneaton. A new advertising campaign was launched in October 2020 with the strapline “Reasons For Cathedral City”.[10][11] Another advert, created with repurposed footage, which was launched in April 2020, urged people to stay at home during the lockdown, which went into force the month prior.[12]

In the annual rankings of all businesses in the United Kingdom in December 2012 compiled by YouGov’s BrandIndex, it was rated as tenth most popular brand in the United Kingdom; the most popular food or drink, ranked higher than Starbucks Coffee.[13]