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 original owners of the brand, 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”.[7] 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.[8]

Saputo bought Dairy Crest in July 2019, the purchase being announced in February 2019.[9][10] As of April 2022, 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”.[11][12]

Another advert that was 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.[13] The brand was officially launched in the United States in September 2020, this following the launch in Canada the previous month.[14][15][16]

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.[17]