Sandhead Creamery was established in 1893 by the Galloway Creamery Cooperative Society. From the outset, Sandhead Creamery on Main Street was a cheese factory. A piggery, on the Luce Bay side of Main Street, provided an outlet for some of the whey.
Following its formation, the Scottish Milk Marketing Board (SMMB) purchased Sandhead.
Until 1939 Sandhead was regarded as part of the Galloway central creamery at Stranraer and no separate accounts were kept.
After WW2, Walter McLean (then the Creamery Manager) and his son, Neil, pioneered the manufacture of block cheese with the assistance of the Kraft company. Production continued until the mid 1960s when the Creamery was closed down. Block cheese making was then transferred to Port William, supervised by Neil McLean, until it too was closed in the late 1960s. Neil moved on to manage the Torrylinn Creamery on Arran.
Sandhead Creamery was sold in 1972 to J & M Bell (of Sandmill Farm) for the production of pasteurised milk which was retailed in foil capped glass bottles. The business did not thrive.
The building on Main Street still exists as ‘The Old Creamery Flats’. The piggery has long gone but its memory is preserved in nearby Piggery Lane.
Like Sandhead, a number of cheese making factories were created in Wigtownshire from the late 19th century until after the mid 20th century; an endeavour that was also mirrored throughout the entire south-west of Scotland – including the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, Dumfries-shire and Ayrshire.
Today in the Rhins and Machars there remains but one (albeit large) working unit. Some of the former creamery buildings have found new future-proofed uses. Some are still in use but in a state of disrepair. Others lie derelict, and some have been razed to the ground.