A family-owned independent cheesemaking business is setting out to buck the usual cheese trends and transform people’s eating and shopping habits.
Butlers Farmhouses Cheeses, the masterminds behind Blacksticks blue cheese, want to snap people out of buying the same cheeses every time they’re in the supermarket.
Instead, they say, you can switch out popular choices like cheddar and feta for blue, which isn’t just for your Christmas cheeseboard.
Cheese toasties, salads, burgers, and even beans on toast all pair perfectly with a good helping of Blacksticks, whether you’re slicing, grating or toasting it.
You might’ve spotted these words – ‘Rules are there to be sliced, grated and toasted’ – around Manchester already – Butlers’ have been loudly spreading the word of Blacksticks all over buses, billboards and beyond.
ADVERTISEMENT
They say they want to ‘awaken people to new, accessible blue cheese-eating occasions’.
Blacksticks has been spreading the word about blue cheese through huge adverts around Manchester. Credit: Supplied
Matthew Hall, fourth-generation owner at Butlers Farmhouse Cheeses, explains: “More households buy cheese than toilet roll! Yet people buy into the same cheeses on autopilot over and over.
ADVERTISEMENT
“There is so much joy to be had by injecting mega flavour into more of those cheese-eating moments with speciality British cheeses like Blacksticks.”
The business has conducted research that has found people love eating blue cheese at Christmas but often don’t carry on eating (arguably) the world’s best cheese through the rest of the year.
Matthew said: “Our Christmas sales tell us that people love Blacksticks, so we know that’s not the barrier.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Finding it relevant, is, and so we want to help cheese lovers discover Blacksticks and make it more accessible to them.”
There’s a whole new range of Blacksticks designed to make blue cheese slot into your everyday cooking, from the Blacksticks Mega Melts which are ideal for melting on top of burgers to the Blacksticks Everyday, which can be easily sliced, grated, and added to just about anything you fancy eating.
As for why they’ve chosen Manchester to launch their campaign, Matthew said: “Not only are we a local business, Mancunians challenge, break the rules and innovate in food, music, arts and culture. There is such a strong sense of identity here, Manchester carves its own path, which is exactly what we see for Blacksticks.”
Blacksticks is available to buy in all major supermarkets including Asda, Booths, Co-op, Morrisons, M&S, Sainsburys, Tesco, Waitrose as well as in independents, delis and for online delivery direct from the dairy to your front door at butlerscheeses.co.uk.
A month-long, mile-long, margarita bar crawl is returning to Manchester
Daisy Jackson
An award-winning bar crawl that’s all about celebrating margaritas is returning to Manchester this month.
El Tequileño’s Margarita Mile will see venues right across the city centre creating bespoke tequila cocktails, alongside events and loads more.
The mile-long, month-long celebration will kick off on 16 February, with 11 brilliant local venues taking part this year.
Those involved will include Mexican restaurant favourite Madre (and its sister site, Mexican pool hall Salon Madre), margarita bar Ramona, and cosy cocktail dens like The Daisy.
Also joining in this year is the city’s newest rooftop destination, Chotto Matte, which is home to Claude’s Skyview Bar with staggering views over Albert Square to the Manchester Town Hall.
It’s all been handily laid out into a mile(ish)-long bar crawl that will showcase the best in tequila and some of the best watering holes in the city.
Billed as the ‘ultimate margarita experience’, you can spend the next month visiting participating venues to sample bespoke menus, with the main celebrations taking place during Mile Week from 16 to 22 February – ahead of National Margarita Day on 22 February.
The Margarita Mile launched in Manchester in 2023 and was initially a week-long celebration, designed to celebrate quality tequila, champion bartender creativity, and tempt people back out into bars during the quietest time of the year for hospitality.
Now in its fourth year, it’s grown to an award-winning event (it was named The Spirits Business Best Event of the Year 2025), spanning a full month.
Maps of this year’s Margarita Mile across Manchester are available online HERE, as well as at all participating venues, with no tickets required.
Steffin Oghene, VP Business Development for El Tequileño, says: “Each year, the Margarita Mile grows, and we’re incredibly proud that it is now an award-winning campaign.
“Our goal has always been to share a love of craft tequila while connecting Brits with the hospitality trade, especially in such challenging times.
“With some of the best bars and bartenders in the world, it’s more important than ever to inspire the UK public to get out, enjoy the Mile, and raise a margarita.”
All the venues on the El Tequileño Margarita Mile in Manchester
New details released ahead of world-premiere exhibition taking visitors on ‘epic space adventure’
Emily Sergeant
Some exciting new details of a major exhibition taking visitors on an ‘epic space adventure’ in Manchester next month have been revealed.
Making its world premiere, Horrible Science: Cosmic Chaos will invite visitors to explore our wondrous Solar System when it launches at the Science and Industry Museum in a few weeks time.
Announced in November last year fresh off-the-back of the new BBC Children’s and Education TV show, Horrible Science, the ‘thrilling’ new exhibition will encourage visitors to ‘do science the horrible way’, and join both scientists and supervillains to unveil the secrets of space.
The new exhibition will propel families up into space where mystery, intrigue, and rocket-loads of silly and surprising science await. You’ll get to venture through a series of cosmic zones, walk in the shoes of astronauts, explore the life-giving energy of the sun, marvel at mysterious moons, and discover far-off weird worlds.
Left teetering on the edge of our Solar System, explorers will then find themselves staring into the dark depths of space, on the lookout for any extra-terrestrial life that could be staring back.
Whether its sniffing astronauts’ smelly socks, dancing on an alien disco planet, feeling the tremors from a mysterious moonquake, or launching a space rocket, organisers say this new adventure will engage all the senses in a truly immersive experience.
This is the first time Horrible Science has been brought to life as a major exhibition.
Horrible Science: Cosmic Chaos opens in a few weeks time / Credit: Drew Forsyth (Science Museum Group)
Visitors will get to see familiar characters from the BBC series – like Dr Big Brain, in particular – on their mission to find out more about our fascinating Solar System through interactive experiments, playful challenges, and sensory exploration.
Newly announced are the names of some of the different exciting areas of the exhibition, like ‘Awesome Astronauts’, where life aboard the International Space Station is revealed, and ‘Mysterious Moon’ where visitors explore the only place beyond Earth ever visited by humans.
There’s also ‘Sizzling Sun’, ‘Weird Worlds’, and sensory spaces like the ‘Cosy Crater’ and ‘Dreadful Deep Space’ to make the most of.
The exhibition is being developed by the Science and Industry Museum in collaboration with producers of the Horrible Science TV show, BBC Children’s and Education, and Lion Television, together with Scholastic, who are publishers of the much-loved Horrible Science book series by Nick Arnold and illustrated by Tony De Saulles.
‘Unmissable’ objects from the Science Museum Group’s world-class space collection will also be on show when the exhibition premieres.
Horrible Science: Cosmic Chaos will open at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester on 13 February 2026 for an 11-month run before heading down to London, and tickets are now on sale priced at £10 – with family discounts available, and under-threes going free.
Daisy Jackson -
5th August 2024 
