‘It bloody works’: why the world’s oldest cheddar-maker uses a ‘milk-source’ heat pump — SkimNews
Get the Energy newsletter
Daily energy & climate — solar, EVs, oil, the policy fights and tech bets shaping the transition. Free.
- Barber's Farmhouse Cheesemakers, operating since 1833, deployed Arkaya Energy's 'milk-source' heat pumps at three of its seven milking parlours starting in 2024, replacing conventional chillers and electric-resistance heaters.
- The heat pumps cut electricity use in half, saving Barber's roughly £70,000 a year and eliminating nearly 66 tons of carbon emissions annually, with a payback of under two years — unusual for farm capital projects.
- Arkaya's devices chill milk to as low as 1.6°C (35°F) while diverting waste heat to bring wash water to 92°C (198°F), consolidating the ice-bank-plus-boiler setup Barber's had previously relied on.
- Arkaya Energy, a four-employee UK startup founded by Kumo Sharma, has installed 27 heat pumps since 2024 and expects to deploy 34 more by the end of 2025; expansion is planned into Ireland, then broader Europe and eventually the US, home to nearly 25,000 dairy herds in 2024.
- The Barber family plans to convert all remaining milking parlours to Arkaya's heat pumps by 2028; the technology won the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers' 2026 innovation award.
- Renewable Thermal Collaborative senior director Ruth Checknoff called milking operations a 'slam-dunk' heat-pump use, and Cascade Energy's Steve Koski said Europe leads adoption because it lacks cheap natural gas — while rivals GEA, Frick, and Tetra Pak target factory processing, leaving milking-parlour demand largely unaddressed.
Why it matters: Barber's £70,000 annual savings and 66-ton CO2 cut show heat-pump retrofits can pay back in under two years on working dairy farms — and with 7,000 UK farms and nearly 25,000 US dairy herds as potential markets, Arkaya faces little direct competition, since GEA, Frick, and Tetra Pak serve factory processing, not milking parlours.
Ask SkimNews
