Homegrown talent
BRONWEN PERCIVAL
Cheese buyer, Neal’s Yard Dairy
Thoughtful, curious and articulate, Bronwen Percival occupies a special role in Britain’s cheese world. She works as a buyer and technical manager for Neal’s Yard Dairy — the micro-dairy turned artisan cheese retailer founded by Randolph Hodgson in 1979. And her role involves working as closely as she can with the producers of the 60 cheeses they stock.
Bronwen visits cheesemakers all over the UK, getting to know the cheeses she’s buying. It’s a practice first started by Hodgson, and is a time-consuming yet extremely important part of her job. “It would be super-easy just to pick up the phone,” she explains. “But there’s no better way to maintain our connection than to set foot on the farm, taste through the batches of
