Emily Davis has been exhibiting at Borderway Dairy Expo for the past two years. As she gears up for this year’s event, we take a look at her showing career and her family’s farming enterprise.
“I work full-time on our family’s pedigree Jersey farm, Rivermead Jerseys, where I rear calves and assist our herdman in general cow management tasks. Additionally, I work three days a week for the colostrum company, SCCI. And run my own photography business to the side of this.
We milk 220 cows and are calving all year round, with Autumn being the busiest season.
We established the pedigree Jersey herd in 2003. Before that, we were all Holstein, and while we still have some Holsteins, the Jerseys are now the prominent breed. The cows are milked twice a day through a GEA parlour. All of the milk is produced and sold to our own milk business, which is called Rivermead Dairy Ltd. We have a fleet of nine lorries, collecting milk from other local farms and farms in the South East of England and distributing it, mainly to Asian markets in London for manufacturing into puddings, paneer cheese, mozzarella, and cream. We also have customers in Leicester,Wiltshire and the Midlands, we also supply to local creameries and Artisan cheesemakers. Everything in the last few years has been about adding value and traceability, linking our milk to the farmers who produce it. Together with our suppliers, we are now selling around 2.5 million litres of milk per month.
The dairy business of Rivermead is very much a family business. The day-to-day farming enterprise is now run by my brother Kevin, myself, and invaluable support from a herdsman and a general farm worker. My older brother, Mark, who I share my showing passion with, is a dairy auctioneer and is also a huge part in the family farm. My father, Gordon, manages the dairy business, and my mother, Hazel, holds the fort.
Our family has been involved in showing for a long time, but not to the level we do now. I personally have been showing since I was three years old. The greatest influence in my showing career has been my elder brother, Mark, who is fourteen years older than me. We mainly select animals for the show together, it’s very much a team effort. Of course, behind the scenes, we also have a fantastic team of helpers – we couldn’t show without them.
My greatest achievement most recently was winning the Border and Lakeland HYB Rally last year. I won my handler’s class, and then Devon as a county went on to win overall. I am fortunate to have competed in other countries as well as the UK – last year, I showed in Australia and New Zealand, and previously have competed in Germany twice.
Borderway UK Dairy Expo is one of the most renowned dairy shows in the UK, and we’ve been coming for the last two years – 2025 will be our third year. It’s always a long journey and a big effort to travel this far with cattle – the journey is about 8.5 hours and a 700-mile round trip by lorry. However, when you scoop Reserve Champion in your first year competing in showmanship, it’s worth every second.
In 2023, Rivermead won Jersey Champion with homebred Rivermead Minx Candy, and in 2024, we won Reserve Jersey Champion with Rivermead Victorious Gorgeous Blondie. For everyone at Rivermead, it was a great accomplishment to achieve these results at such an incredible show.”
