Happy Butter secures £50K British Business Bank loan for Devon kitchen expansion
What's the deal? Happy Butter, a South Devon organic ghee manufacturer, has received £50,000 from the British Business Bank's South West Investment Fund to convert a vegetable warehouse on an industrial estate into a top-of-the-range production kitchen in Totnes, Devon.
The company, launched in 2016 by husband-and-wife team Kate and Rupert Fry on the slopes of Dartmoor, has grown from a kitchen-table operation into a nationwide supplier of organic ghee. It now stocks health food stores across the UK and exports to Ireland and South Korea.
Happy Butter produces two varieties — plain and golden turmeric — and counts fans including Ravinder Bhogal of London restaurant JikoniDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, who ordered ghee for the first meals at her cafe in the new V&A East Museum. Sales via Ocado are also strong.
The loan was delivered by SWIG FinanceDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, which manages the smaller loans portion of the South West Investment Fund. That fund provides loans from £25,000 to £2M and equity investment up to £5M to support small and medium-sized businesses in the region.
Why now? The business has simply outgrown its space. After moving from the family kitchen into Buckfastleigh's historic wool factory in 2017, it expanded from one unit to four — and hit a wall. "We kept expanding until we had four, and couldn't go any further," said Kate Fry. The new Totnes premises, with an official ribbon-cutting planned for June 12 in the presence of local MP Caroline Voaden, mark the next chapter.
The couple now work full-time on Happy Butter alongside three employees, with two more hires planned in the next 12 months.
What could go wrong? Supply consistency is a challenge. Happy Butter sources butter primarily from two local organic farms but must rely on larger brokers to fill gaps. "If we could, we'd buy purely local, paying farmers direct," Kate says. "The fat content is higher, for a start. But we need a consistent supply."
Saturated fats also remain a contested topic in nutrition. Kate is careful to frame her belief in ghee's health properties as "an opinion, not a statement."
The signal: Happy Butter's trajectory reflects a broader trend of artisan, health-conscious food brands scaling up from micro-origins with public-backed finance. The British Business Bank's regional investment funds are designed precisely for businesses like this — too small for traditional venture capital but too ambitious for bootstrapping alone. The company's export success, particularly in South Korea, hints at growing global appetite for niche, provenance-led food products.
Read more: South West Business Council
