A FOREST butter has become the spread between the slices of the most expensive bacon butty in the UK.

AT £11.50 the Claridge's Hotel butty is strictly aimed at the creme de la creme of London society, using organic bacon, Pan de mie white bread from Daylesford Farm in the Cotswolds, and unsalted butter from Netherend Farm near Woolaston.

"Well there's a thing," said Rachel Hardacre of Netherend. "It shows we're doing something right. It's something to be proud of isn't it?"

Netherend's butter is no stranger to the plates of the rich and famous and is sold through wholesalers as far afield as Scotland. It's not only on the menu at Claridges, but also the Savoy, Harrods, Orient Express and Gordon Ramsay's restaurants.

Nethertheless, the Woodside Woolaston farm, which has been in the Weeks family since 1936, still has its feet firmly on the ground, using dairy cream from local farms, and supplying shops around the Forest.

Present owners, Wyndham and Linda Weeks, sell on the motto: "The richest dairy pastures lie betwixt the Severn and Wye" and the reputation and sales of their butter has been growing ever since it tickled the taste buds of a London dairy distributor on holiday in the Wye Valley.

The farm's nearest roadside cafe on the A48 near Woolaston sells bacon butties at £2 a throw – whether the bacon is organic, the ketchup posh or the butter from Netherend isn't known.