chemistry

Rachel's Organic

Rachel's Organic is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Rachel's Organic rather than just read about it. In short: Rachel's is an organic dairy products company based in Aberystwyth, Wales. Founded by local farmers but now a subsidiary of French company Lactalis, it was the United Kingdom's first certified organic dairy.

Key takeaways

Rachel's Organic belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Rachel's Organic to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Rachel's Organic from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Rachel's is an organic dairy products company based in Aberystwyth, Wales. Founded by local farmers but now a subsidiary of French company Lactalis, it was the United Kingdom's first certified organic dairy.

Background The Williams family took over Brynllys farm in Ceredigion, West Wales, in 1942, and started developing a herd of Guernsey cows. Dinah Williams was the daughter of Abel Jones, Professor of Agriculture at Aberystwyth University, and his wife Bessie Brown MBE, the university’s first dairy instructor and organiser of the Women's Land Army in Wales during World War I. After World War II, Dinah often appeared with Lady Eve Balfour, trying to dissuade farmers from using artificial fertilisers and pesticides, leading to the formation of the Soil Association. As a result, in 1952 Brynllys became one of the earliest members of the Soil Association, and established the farm as the first certified organic dairy farm. After the death of her husband in 1966, Williams handed over the farm to her middle daughter Rachel and son-in-law Gareth Rowlands. At this time they were supplying premium organic milk to the Milk Marketing Board. In the mid-1980s, after a scriptwriter for BBC Radio 4 visited Brynllys, it inspired a storyline in The Archers when Pat and Tony Archer “went organic” at Bridge Farm. In 2009, Teleri Bevan published a book They Dared to Make a Difference, detailing the lives of the three family generations at Brynllys.

History The company was born out of the need for farming diversification. When heavy snow hit Aberystwyth in 1982, preventing milk tankers from reaching the isolated farm, the Rowlands were forced to find other uses for their milk. Using an old butter churn, they made cream and butter by hand. After the snow cleared, the Rowlands discovered they had inadvertently created a market for their dairy goods and they were spurred on to extend their range of products. Rachel began researching old recipes, including yogurt, and the Rachel’s Dairy brand was born as a company in 1984. The home for the company’s production stayed on Brynllys farm, but between 1985 and 1990 the company experienced considerable growth, which resulted in a purpose-built dairy being built at Glanyrafon, Aberystwyth.

Present In 1999, the company was bought for £1.5M in an agreed takeover by United States dairy company Horizon Organic, their only presence in the UK. In 2004, Horizon was bought by Dean Foods based in Texas, the largest dairy distributor in the USA. The company dropped the “organic” from its name in 2009 becoming simply Rachel’s. However, all products remained organic and include milk, butter, rice pudding, cream, crème fraiche and a variety of yogurts. In 2019 the name returned to Rachel's Organic. On the 28 July 2010, it was confirmed that Dean Foods as part of their restructuring programme had agreed to sell a package of European dairy products companies including Rachel's to BSA International of Belgium, the holding company for France-based Lactalis Groupe, which itself will take operational control of Rachel's. The company has since moved production of all of its rice-based desserts to France. In May 2012, Rachel's was moved into Lactalis Nestlé Chilled Dairy (LNCD), which is a joint venture with Nestlé. Lactalis owns 60% of LNCD and Nestlé 40%. Hence Rachel's was included in a boycott related to baby milk products by the Lactalis Nestlé from 2012 onwards.

Awards Rachel’s has won numerous awards for the quality of its products and its innovation including Great Taste awards, and Wales the True Taste awards. In 2007 Rachel’s was recognised as one of Britain’s most environmentally friendly brands in a YouGov poll conducted by Marketing Week, and in 2009 was given Coolbrand status in the UK list of Superbrands. In July 2010, Rachel's received eight awards in the Dairy Produce Category at the Royal Welsh Show. Rachel's received a Gold award at Wales the True Taste Food & Drink Awards 2010, for their Wholemilk Gooseberry Yogurt.

Products Yogurt Milk Rice pudding - produced in France Cream Crème fraiche

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Rachel's Organic

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Rachel's Organic claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Rachel's Organic before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Rachel's Organic ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Rachel's Organic

In research: Rachel's Organic appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Rachel's Organic in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Rachel's Organic is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Brand name yogurts, Companies based in Ceredigion, Dairy products companies of the United Kingdom, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Rachel's Organic outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Rachel's Organic in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Rachel's Organic means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Rachel's Organic out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Rachel's Organic in simple terms?

Why does Rachel's Organic matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Rachel's Organic?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Rachel's Organic.