On the vague subject of milk: cravendale (which I am sure is gigantic evil milk) says it’s “filtered for freshness”. What’s that about, then?

We get our work milk delivered as we are quite a way out of town. I was chatting to the man last week and he told me that he gets up at 11pm on week days to be on the road by 1am to collect his milk for the days deliveries. He comes to us at around 9am. By the time he’s finished his days work he gets around one hours sleep before he’s up again at 11pm….
On sundays he sleeps in till 5am.

says it’s “filtered for freshness”. What’s that about, then?

It is filtered so it stays fresher for longer.

By the time he’s finished his days work he gets around one hours sleep before he’s up again at 11pm….

You are making that bit up aren’t you?

Nope, thats what he told me.. I asked him why he look totally knackered!

When I had a milk round as a Saturday/holiday job in my teens, I was up at 3.30, first round at 4, popped in for a second breakfast at 7, back out at 7.30, home for 9.30, third breakfast then bed till 12.30 to get up for lunch.

Many memorable moments over those 4 years.

I’d love to support the local farm/milkman, but the amount we go through, MrsMC insists on supermarket specials.

Nope, thats what he told me.. I asked him why he look totally knackered!

I doubt the human body could physically survive on 1 hour’s sleep 6 nights a week.

We use to get milk delivered, we liked the fact that they would deliver fresh milk 2/3 times a week. However they kept getting the order wrong – no apologies when I contacted them; then deliveries would often be late (delivered after 8am) so the milk went off. Dairy Crest who supplied our milkman paid less to the dairy farmers milk (just under 22p according to this article) than the local supermarkets despite being 3 times the cost!. We recently bought the milk from Safeway that gave an additional 10p to farmers but it went off before the best before date. I now just buy the fresh filtered white stuff.

gets up at 11pm on week days to be on the road by 1am

**** me – even my wife’s faster at getting ready to go out than that.

On the basis no-one’s going to see (or smell) you, I’d be up at about 0057 to be on the road by 0100

Sadly, I think milk people are a dying breed, leading the way of the dodo for posties.

We stopped ours after having kids.
Ours was annoying in the summer – he roared up the road in his transit at 3am waking us up before screeching up the road

We have a milky. I’ve never seen him as it turns up early in the morning. We did it to support the local farm and if they did fish fingers we’d have them as well

supermarket milk seems to be a lot more consistent and a bit creamier – no idea what they put in it but I tried some organic Duchy from the supermarket the other day and it is much more like the milkmans stuff, which is somewhat reassuring.

Homogenized/emulsified.

You add a chemical to the milk to dissolve the cream into the milk so it doesn’t float on top.

The chemical has the side effect of giving the milk an even creamier mouthfeel, because that’s normally the result of the emulsion and the emulsifier is just a really good emulsion (obviously).

Same stuff goes into fat free anything, to make it feel like it’s not just water.

Milkman with the milk sources locally.
We also get orange juice from once a week.

He’s certainly diversifying- you can get scotch eggs, newspapers and other bits if you want too.

One of the neighbours has the milk delivered every day.
By a milk van that sounds like Ken Block’s car. Every day
That turns round outside our house. Every day
At 3:30 am. EVERY DAY.

Milkmen / women will go the way Blockbusters went – they just cant compete with competitors, cant supply what customers want and wont survive on us feeling charitable.

They sell a product that’s the same whoever sells it. So they have to compete on price and service.

This has been gradually happening for decades, those that are left are either deluded, slow to grasp the change or clinging on for the short term.

They should start offering unpasteurised stuff from vending machines in garage forecourts.

Or drugs.

I was in Aldi just before Christmas, guy in front of me has a jacket on with the logo of my local farmy type milk supplier. He had a trolley rammed with milk and and another full of eggs. Lass on the till reckoned he bought that lot on a daily basis….. 😆

Our milkman is fantastic. Not only does he deliver milk but many other groceries too, at any time of day we choose, and his website is massive. I think he’s called Mr Sainsbury.

We use a local milk man – two deliveries a week (two litre bottles – no idea why he uses plastic rather than traditional bottles) cost us £3.98.

Because he’s buying in bulk from ASDA and sticking fresh labels on. (-:

It turns out that McQueen’s Diaries simply buy their milk from First Milk

First Milk is a co-operative of dairy farmers so theoretically the money goes to the farmers.

Milkmen / women will go the way Blockbusters went – they just cant compete with competitors, cant supply what customers want and wont survive on us feeling charitable.

They sell a product that’s the same whoever sells it. So they have to compete on price and service.

Sadly, I think that’s the long and short of it. It’s probably still viable if you live in the Outer Hebrides or some middle-class remote rural armpit with a name like Wibblington Upon Flange, or if you’re elderly / infirm and can’t lug a gallon of milk home every time you venture outside, but for most people the elephant in the room is that there’s little compelling practical reason to have milk delivered these days.

I get the whole “supporting local business” thing – when I was born my first home was our family-run dairy farm – but at the point where customers are paying a large premium to buy exactly the same product they could just pick up with the rest of the groceries, really they’re just making a nostalgia-fuelled charitable donation. And it’s hardly surprising that local farmers are struggling if that’s the farmers’ primary business model. So then they’re forced to be reliant on selling to supermarkets, and the supermarkets know they’ve got them over a barrel.

Back when my folks delivered milk, the customers’ choice was “local farmer” or “no milk today thanks.” My grandparents used to have a horse & cart where they’d ladle out fresh milk from a churn on the cart. Easy enough to make a business when your customer is basically everyone. That’s just not viable any more.

I think what’s needed is a unique selling point, and maybe a broadening of service. Still-warm freshly baked farmhouse bread delivered for instance, I’d pay for that in a heartbeat.

Real milkman here; we don’t care if the milk is more expensive. It’s a small price to pay for fighting back against the avarice of the supermarkets who have put so many honest people out of business by forcing prices so low.

milkman proper glass bottles 50p a pint seems good to me

Globalti – its also all the honest shoppers who want better value for money and convenience that force the price down.

Not just the big buying power of supermarkets.

Raw milk direct (self-serve vending machine) from the dairy round the corner for £1/litre.. happy to pay a bit more when it goes direct to source.

I gave up on the milkman after too many days when he came after I’d gone to work and I came home to find a warm bottle of yoghurt pecked open by birds on the doorstep.

Despite all the warm feelings we may have for them (I remember being allowed to give a sugar lump to the milkman’s horse when I was little) the milkman’s really an anachronism from the days before we all had fridges. And if you want to support farmers, get your milk from one of the big supermarkets that have arrangements to give the farmers a fair price, not the independents who can’t prevent the processors from screwing the farms.

I now buy locally from a place down the road (via a supermarket):

Your “local” milkman may well get it from somewhere similar.

“its also all the honest shoppers who want better value for money and convenience that force the price down.”

If by better value you mean – want the same thing cheaper at all costs, screw the other guy then yeah that….

When we had 3 kids at home we bought milk 6Ltrs at a time. Twice a week or more. Couldn’t afford to pay milkman prices. We did try milk delivery as well but our milkman didn’t deliver every day and it arrived after 8am. So it didn’t fill the always having a pint in the morning niche. Not sure how local it was either. The farmhouse was just down the road but there was no cows on their land. It’s now a housing development.

Milk. Old people drink that.

Seriously though, every day? what are you doing with it. We buy a pint every 6 weeks, for people to put in tea. most of it gets binned.

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