THE CHEESE SHED
The Cheese Shed is the Westcountry’s leading destination for cheese lovers. Comprised of shop, online business and courtyard café it has a 20-year record of promoting the handmade cheeses of the region on a national basis, whist also catering to the local community and to visitors.
Its position in sought-after Bovey Tracey, on the corner of Dartmoor is enviable; the style and approach of its shop is unique in the south-west and very rare nationally; in short, The Cheese Shed is a well-known and much-loved part of the cheese world.
An opportunity now exists to move to Devon, to live in this beautiful location and to run a business of integrity, which is based around the sale of truly exceptional quality products.
HISTORY
The Cheese Shed was founded in 2006 as a pure online business, based around Westcountry artisan cheese. It established itself as a source of hard-to-get cheeses which it supplied nationally, but also as a useful resource for gift buyers and for people planning weddings. It pioneered the idea of the ‘cheese wedding cake’.
The business grew quickly, and in 2012 bought its first premises - a former bank - on the main street of owners’ hometown of Bovey Tracey. This was replaced in 2020 by the current building, which was suitable for the addition of a ‘bricks and mortar’ shop, which opened the following year. To the rear of the main building is a courtyard and barn, which enabled a cafe to open in 2024
BOVEY TRACEY
A small market town on the south-eastern corner of Dartmoor, Bovey Tracey is in an exceptional position, a 10’ drive from the iconic destination of Haytor on Dartmoor, and barely 25’ from the sea. A mere 5’ from the main A38 Devon Expressway, it is superbly accessible to people travelling through Devon. The Cheese Shed itself is beautifully placed opposite the town’s main car park, so is extremely easy to find and to visit.
Bovey itself is a popular place to live - as evidenced by the number of house-hunters who visit the shop - and new housing at either end of the town has allowed its population to grow to over 8,000. It is small enough to have a good sense of community; large enough to have a good range of local services. Commuters benefit from an easy drive to Exeter (20’) or Plymouth (35’).
Visitors enjoy its attractions such as Make Southwest, the House of Marbles and of course The Cheese Shed whilst also using it as a base to explore the coast and countryside; the town offers them a wide range of accommodation and facilities.
PREMISES
The building provided a home for a family-run handloom weaving business which lasted from 1938 until The Cheese Shed took it over. It features:
- shop, cheese storage and packing room for online orders on the ground floor;
- an attractive courtyard and garden at the rear (easily accessed via a lane);
- a beautiful stone barn behind that.
The first floor was previously, and could again be, a self-contained one- or two-bedroom flat: there is a kitchen and bathroom.The barn provides extra seating for café customers, storage space plus additional packing and cheese storage for use at Christmas. It also has a useful mezzanine floor.
Extensive work was carried out to tailor-make a building suitable for The Cheese Shed’s needs.This included:
- administrative and storage space upstairs;
- three refrigerated spaces (shop, cold store and backup cold store in barn); improvements to the firstfloor accommodation;
- flood resilient features for the ground floor (see below);
- fully fitted out ‘packing room’ at the rear of the ground floor;
- a glass partition between shop and packing room;
- an extension at the rear;
- reinstating periodappropriate sash windows upstairs, fittingatraditional‘Victorianawning’;
- a solar installation (see below);
- flood residence (see below);
- replanted garden including three trees and
- a completely revamped front for the barn.
The cost of the building and these works amounted to around £400,000.
SHOP
This is the main space that our customers see and and we therefore paid it particular attention. The whole space is permanently chilled to 11-13°, which allows a type of cheese retailing almost unheard of outside the larger cities.
Entering the shop is a striking sensory experience as customers take in the temperature, the sights and the smells. The counter is piled high with whole cheeses in a dramatic display which draws on our range of 130 cheeses and changes every week. Some of them are produced uniquely for us or are matured by us: they cannot be bought elsewhere. Our staff offer customers samples to try and discuss their needs in order to arrive at the right choice.
Elsewhere floor-to ceiling shelves feature whole cheeses. The shop doubles as a naturing room so that some of these cheeses may be there for as much as five months.
The shop makes heavy use of beautiful Douglas Fir (shelves and counter front) and Welsh slate (countertop). It features a new double-glazed window and is fully insulated. A visit to our shop is an experience that no deli can match, and which is hard to find elsewhere.
FLOOD RESILIENCE
The Cheese Shed is technically in an area that can flood, though we understand that it has not done so since the late 1970s.A flood prevention scheme was carried out in the 1980s and there have no problems since we took over in 2020.
Nonetheless it was considered prudent to try and make the building flood resilient. Accordingly, we:
- installed a concrete floor throughout the ground floor;
- installed oneway valves for packing room sink and ground floor bathroom; the electrics come down from the ceiling rather than up from the floor, and we bought a set of removable floodgates for use if necessary.
Note that insurance has been readily available for the building.
SOLAR INSTALLATION
In a further major investment, we installed 27 solar panels and two batteries. The panels face south-east (main building) and south-west (barn) enabling us to make the most of solar generation throughout the day. This cost about £20,000, which needs to be added to the figures given below.
FUTURE POTENTIAL
Various opportunities are available to a future owner in terms of development:
- the firstfloor flat could be reinstated;
- the roof space (currently an unused attic space) could be converted;
- the barn is full of possibilities, especially if a full floor replaced the current mezzanine.
On the business side, untried ideas would include:
- movingintothewholesalearea,i.esellingtohospitality,restaurantsetc;
- developing the café offering;
- having a Cheese Shed stall available for outdoor events and festivals;
- eveningevents,i.e cheese and wine, cheese tasting etc.
TRADING INFORMATION
Turnover was £450,000 in 2024-25 and looks to be very slightly more in 2025-26. With a weighted average pre-tax profit over three years of £75,981, the business was valued at £225,000 in 2025. In a separate exercise, the building was valued at £275, 000-300,000 if bought by a commercial landlord (i.e not attaching any value to the improvements undertaken that were necessary for the business - see above).
Whilst it would be preferred to sell 100% of The Cheese Shed’s shares - i.e to include the building - we would consider splitting the two for a serious buyer. In this case the business could be sold separately with a lease for the continued use of the building,
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