Marcus Fergusson

Marcus Fergusson is an award-winning cheesemaker from Feltham’s Farm. Marcus first learned to make cheese here at River Cottage and has gone on to win Best British Cheese at the Virtual Cheese Awards in 2020 and 2021. His astounding rind-washed cheese Renegade Monk is a very worthy winner and a fantastic example of a small artisan cheesemaker that is reinventing British cheese. His cheese is sought worldwide and features on Michelin-starred menus throughout Europe. Marcus’ dairy is based on Feltham’s Farm, 22 acres of organic land in the north of Somerset’s beautiful Blackmore Vale. We have always farmed using organic principles, so that means no chemicals on the land and no antibiotics or restricted treatments for our animals, which are all free range and fed organic food. We do not use chemicals, pesticides, or GM modified seeds, we try to avoid single use plastics (difficult with PPE these days), and where possible we use biodynamic principles too. He and his wife Penny Nagle run the dairy and farm. The cheese business came about almost by accident, after Marcus was made redundant from a corporate job in London. He wanted to do something on the farm but at 22 acres it was too small to farm conventionally while making enough money to live on. Marcus has always been obsessed with cheese and after a one-day course at River Cottage, there was no turning back. Just a few years into the adventure they have won numerous awards and the order book keeps getting fatter. In many ways, it seems that this is a mid-life crisis that seems to be panning out OK.