Home Delivery of Fresh local Milk

trulla

Just want to find out what the majority of you think about this idea and to see if there is a market there. Thanks.

Basicially Hubby is thinking to get together with a local farmer and deliver fresh milk to peoples houses. They would be delivered twice a week and you can choose how many litres you want. The milk comes in glass bottles and would be recycled. So you open your front door in the morning and the fresh milk is there fo you and your family, leave out the bottles from the delivery before and they'll be collected and reused (No need to wash them even, as they will be professionally cleaned and sterilised).
For a litre it would cost €1. You can also order online and pay by Direct Debit and would get a 10% Discount.

Any additional opinions are very appreciated.

dudara

Moved to Business & Entreprenurial Management

dudara

YouBuyLocal

http://followthefoodlink.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/meet-joe-daly-valentia-island-dairy/

It works in Valentia Island, I reckon it could work here. Problem is refrigeration, how do you keep it cold enough so it lasts the customer two days. You'd have to be delivering at 6, 5 and even 4 in the morning ready for the breakfast.

Building your route will be easier these days than it used to be because of new media. What I suggest is that you tell show other consumers a map of your current customers and make the pricing scalable, i.e. the more people you get within a km radius the cheaper it is for them, so you can sell to some for about 70c or 80c a litre if they are part of a cluster. If people see that they're neighbours are going for it then they might as well. They also might be encouraged to create a cluster by telling their friends in the area.

This would require web-development, but I am doing something similar for distributors on-line so you may not need your own web-site. http://www.omegabeefdirect.ie/ This guy would be a good person to talk to, very open, great business man, does well and has lots of ideas, he might be willing to help promote your route as he is looking for variety on his site. Read his story at the very least, its very interesting.

Good Luck,
C

HellFireClub

A mate of mine tried this but it didn't work out, but the problem wasn't for want of sales. What's the story with the milk being pasteurized or whatever (I actually love proper fresh farm milk myself!), but surely there is some stuff to be taken care of on the regulation/compliance end of things, public safety, EU laws, etc?

Remember it's a credit business (unless you build it around a model where you take orders in off the internet so you have payment secured), but with the way things are at the moment in this country, you are obviously exposing yourself to some people drawing you out on payment (people "not being at home" when you come to collect cash), etc...

One thing I will warn you about OP is if you have other folks within the business (delivery people), handling cash, make sure you have complete visbility with regard to the figures, who owes what, etc...

ifah

I know a couple of dairy farmers and they are not even allowed consume their own unpasteurised milk at home due to Health & Safety regulations. Will the farmer be pasteurising the milk ?
Who pays for bottles / breakages etc ?
How do you protect the deliveries from theft / scavengers etc (magpies are ingenious) ?
Will your husband have to guarantee a high enough turnover to make it finanically viable for the farmer to invest in all of the required infrastructure to pasteurise , bottle , wash etc ?

trulla

ifah wrote: »

I know a couple of dairy farmers and they are not even allowed consume their own unpasteurised milk at home due to Health & Safety regulations. Will the farmer be pasteurising the milk ?
Who pays for bottles / breakages etc ?
How do you protect the deliveries from theft / scavengers etc (magpies are ingenious) ?
Will your husband have to guarantee a high enough turnover to make it finanically viable for the farmer to invest in all of the required infrastructure to pasteurise , bottle , wash etc ?

Thanks for allt the great replies and things you've pointed out. Keep 'em coming!
Yes, the milk would be pasteurised.
We are thinking about all these things like breakages, theft etc and try to work out around that too.
The farmer he's working with calculated all that into his prices (bottle, wash etc).

Bandara

why are you going with bottles ? the cost, the collection, the cleaning etc?

I cant see that people are going to care one bit if its in a tetra pak, personally speaking I'd prefer a tetra pak, the hassle of having to keep the bottles and leave them outside would bug me. Also I'd be more comfortable with a tetra pak than a bottle for perceived hygiene/quality reasons

Also why is he doing 1 ltrs? the sales of 1 ltrs is about a third of the sales of 2 litres afaik? From a cost point of view its far more effective for him to package and sell 2 ltrs. His price point isn't cheap at €1 a litre for unbranded milk. Own brand is selling in shops at 1.29 to 1.49 for 2 ltr cartons

And as said, your going to have a nightmare getting paid, have you looked at the costs of your suggestion of doing it by direct debit? I don't see people being too keen on giving their banking details to a new unknown milkman and giving him the right to charge variable amounts.

Its an idea, but I'd be expanding it to include other items that can be provided eggs etc

How much is your husband going to be paying the farmer per litre? Can he actually make money at it after his costs, insurance, vehicle etc ?

Finally, is there not a milkman covering the area already? if not, you have to ask why not.

Pope John 11

Two pints of milk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnOhCy1DTMc

YouBuyLocal

Just to respond again, most people here will not be your target market. This can work without a doubt, but you need a presence online, not necessarily a website, but a place for creating an inventory and customer interface. Don't stick to milk, if you are going to do this create variety. Partner with three or four farmers to deliver farmhouse cheese, preserves, etc, and let the consumer tell you on an online ordering system what they want each week.

New media is changing everything, and this is something that was dead but is being given new life through efficient communications. Imagine the problem of going away any given week and having to cancel the orders and then the delivery having to keep records of all the cancellations. This way you just log on and do it in a click and the consumer isn't charged for that week. My parents used to do a paper round and had such a head-ache going round collecting cash every week, made the job twice as hard. Now with online payments the job is HALVED. Thats a huge difference. I guarantee this can work but you need to be ambitious. If you concentrate on the product and try to use the same old system as 30 or 40 years ago you will fail. But there is a market for an online system, without a doubt. I am in the process of setting this up, check back in 2-3 months.

HellFireClub

YouBuyLocal wrote: »

Just to respond again, most people here will not be your target market. This can work without a doubt, but you need a presence online, not necessarily a website, but a place for creating an inventory and customer interface. Don't stick to milk, if you are going to do this create variety. Partner with three or four farmers to deliver farmhouse cheese, preserves, etc, and let the consumer tell you on an online ordering system what they want each week.

New media is changing everything, and this is something that was dead but is being given new life through efficient communications. Imagine the problem of going away any given week and having to cancel the orders and then the delivery having to keep records of all the cancellations. This way you just log on and do it in a click and the consumer isn't charged for that week. My parents used to do a paper round and had such a head-ache going round collecting cash every week, made the job twice as hard. Now with online payments the job is HALVED. Thats a huge difference. I guarantee this can work but you need to be ambitious. If you concentrate on the product and try to use the same old system as 30 or 40 years ago you will fail. But there is a market for an online system, without a doubt. I am in the process of setting this up, check back in 2-3 months.

This is true OP as I mentioned above, and getting this right can be the difference between success and failure of the whole idea. Credit in retail now is nothing less than a mugs game, you can adapt your model to take orders online and have them paid for before you even deliver them. This is where the smart money is at the moment, and people prefer logging onto a web interface and managing their consumption & expenditure via that method, rather than arsing around with perishable products delivered on a fixed schedule that end up not being used. If you need any help with an online end of it, don't hessitate to drop me a mail, I set up my own sebwite, front end, back end the whole lot, easily done these days.

Tangled

Love the idea, have often thought about how great it would be to see local dairies operating again and I would pay more for 'local' milk delivered. Looking at tying in with other local producers would be great too.

As with the point above, think you would do better going for a 2L bottle, as anyone buying milk regularly enough to warrant setting up delivery will be buying in 2L quantities as it is, and this would surely work out more cost effective for you? I would be happy to put out bottles at night, once the cost of theft etc didn't fall on me, not sure how you'd monitor that though... Would prefer a re-usable bottle to packaging that I have to dispose of.

patwicklow

Well i would love fresh bottles of milk delivered be even worth paying the extra for it. thats what we want good old fashioned ways back and best of luck with it

StupidLikeAFox

HellFireClub wrote: »

and people prefer logging onto a web interface and managing their consumption & expenditure via that method

Im going to disagree with this, you dont want to exclude a lot of people by assuming that everyone wants to manage their life online.

Case in point. A guy set up a milk round in our area not to long ago. I definitely wouldnt use it as the shop is only around the corner and I dont use a set amount of milk every week. However my parents would be creatures of habit and signed up. The guy called around, they said "Sure we'll give it a go". They get a delivery 3 times a week (i think) and the guy calls around every Friday afternoon and collects his money. If nobodys in he just collects it the following week or the week after.

The point im trying to make is that theres no way in hell that they are going to log into a website and manage their milk deliveries. If it was even suggested they would switch off straight away. And I would think that people in the 45+ age bracket would be a bigger market than younger, more tech savvy people

In short, your milk round might succeed, but it wont if you are depending on getting money upfront online - no matter how nice it would work. You'll do well if you can connect with your customers on a personal level

YouBuyLocal

ColHol wrote: »

Im going to disagree with this, you dont want to exclude a lot of people by assuming that everyone wants to manage their life online.

Case in point. A guy set up a milk round in our area not to long ago. I definitely wouldnt use it as the shop is only around the corner and I dont use a set amount of milk every week. However my parents would be creatures of habit and signed up. The guy called around, they said "Sure we'll give it a go". They get a delivery 3 times a week (i think) and the guy calls around every Friday afternoon and collects his money. If nobodys in he just collects it the following week or the week after.

The point im trying to make is that theres no way in hell that they are going to log into a website and manage their milk deliveries. If it was even suggested they would switch off straight away. And I would think that people in the 45+ age bracket would be a bigger market than younger, more tech savvy people

In short, your milk round might succeed, but it wont if you are depending on getting money upfront online - no matter how nice it would work. You'll do well if you can connect with your customers on a personal level

Not necessarily, older people are perfectly happy to pay with their phone, up to 8euro is allowed on premium number. This is an easy payment option, people love it, but they take a larger cut. This way older people can do everything by phone, including ordering.

Nuttzz

YouBuyLocal wrote: »

http://followthefoodlink.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/meet-joe-daly-valentia-island-dairy/

It works in Valentia Island, I reckon it could work here.

I have seen this companies stuff in south kerry, its quite good, the ice cream etc. He goes direct to the consumer at regattas etc but he also has a farm & ice cream parlour you can visit and you'll find his stuff in the local retailers.

Agree with the comments regarding the 2 Litre plastic pack, bottles and wash can lead to more public health risk and you need to factor in that the bottles will have to be replaced after X number of washes (could be 100-200 or more) but they wont last forever

All that said I like this idea and I wish you well with it