AN AWARD winning farm business is holding an open day next week - almost one year to the day since it suffered a £200,000 blaze.

And Brymor Ice Cream will take the opportunity to stage the official launch of a range of new products, including its own cheese and veal.

Forty firemen fought the flames which broke out on the evening of August 17 last year. They confined the fire to four buildings and prevented it from spreading to the nearby production area and a barn housing some of the Guernsey herd.

The Moore family, who own the business, later held a thank you buffet for the fire fighters, local farmers and neighbours who helped to tackle the fire and with the clean up operation.

They were all presented with as much ice cream as they could take and the Moore's were presented with a framed photograph, taken by the fire brigade at the height of the blaze.

The incident also resulted in countless messages of support from customers who visit the farm in their thousands each year to sample its ice cream.

Now the family is inviting anyone interested to visit the farm, near Jervaulx, on its special open day event on Tuesday.

"We have managed to replace everything and have also put a new milk and cream dairy in," said Mr Brian Moore, chairman. "We just want people to be able to see what we have done and have a look round. The public and restaurants, hotels and other businesses are all welcome."

The farm produces 250,000 litres of ice cream a year, in about 40 varieties, from the rich, creamy milk produced by its 300-head Guernsey herd.

They have about 100 milkers but plan to increase the number to 150.

"We are now processing all the milk we produce into either ice cream, cream or milk," said Mr Moore. "The only thing we sell wholesale is skim.

"The price of milk had dropped so low that we thought it would merit further investment in the new dairy to add value to the product. "We are not interested in buying milk in, we just want to process our own.

"Our milk is whole Guernsey milk, proper milk, and we intend to keep it as such for the niche market."

Some of the herd's milk is sent to the Wensleydale Creamery in Hawes, which returns it as a rich, creamy Cheddar cheese under the Brymor label.

A range of cheese is also now available.

The other major development is Brymor Wensleydale Veal produced from the herd's young male calves.

Bull calves currently have no value and many are shot within a few hours of birth and taken by kennels to feed to their dogs.

But Mr Moore does not believe that makes good farming sense after all the time and expense involved in producing the calf, and on welfare grounds.

The farm calves between 150-200 cows a year and at least 50pc are bull calves.

"It just does not seem right to shoot them when they are capable of being reared into a good product," he said.

He is, however, anxious that people realise the calves are raised under environmental and animal welfare-friendly conditions.

"People have a poor image of veal, picturing them in crates and in the dark; that maybe happens on the Continent but not here," he said.

"Ours are raised to 16 weeks of age in straw yards and are fed a special milk feed ad lib and straw.

"Veal is really an out of date term now because it has changed so much, it should really be called young beef, or milk-fed beef."

Restaurants and hotels have already shown interest in the veal products - everything from sausages and burgers to fresh cuts - as have visitors to the ice cream parlour.

"One lady from Carlisle has come twice specially for our veal," said Mr Moore, who said the production system resulted in a pink or rose veal.

The open day takes place between 10am and 2pm on Tuesday when the whole product range will be available