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Neal's Yard Dairy is a London artisanal cheese retailer, wholesaler and (formerly) cheesemaker in London, which was founded by Nicholas Saunders and Randolph Hodgson in 1979. It has been described as "London's foremost cheese store." As of 2020 the company has three shops and a cheese store in London.
Neal's Yard is a small alley in London's Covent Garden between Shorts Gardens and Monmouth Street which opens into a courtyard. It is named after the 17th-century developer Thomas Neale.
In 1976, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam bought offices at 11 Neal's Yard, and alternative activist and entrepreneur Nicholas Saunders established the bulk Whole Food Warehouse; he had bought 2 Neal's Yard, a derelict warehouse previously used by the former Covent Garden fruit and vegetable market, for £7,000 a few years earlier. From this success, grew other enterprises in other buildings such as Neal's Yard Apothecary (now known as Neal's Yard Remedies), Neal's Yard Bakery, Monmouth Coffee Company and Neal's Yard Dairy,
Nicholas Saunders (25 January 1938 – 3 February 1998), born Nicholas Carr-Saunders, was a British social inventor, activist, greengrocer, property developer and entrepreneur in the English 'alternative' movement from the 1970s until his death in a car crash near Kroonstad, South Africa. In 1976, he founded the Whole Food Warehouse, Monmouth Coffee Company in 1978 Neal's Yard Dairy in 1979, and the 'Apothecary' dispensing alternative and natural remedies, now known as Neal's Yard Remedies.