thinking of starting a glass milk delivery service

salmocab

Henwin wrote: »

ya i was thinking that, i was trying to be cautious in the number i cud deliver before 7am, i presume everyone wud want it delivered before 7, so to deliver 100 bottles i think it would take 3 hours. i wouldnt like to be working all night if i had to double it. i doubt peoplw wud opt for day time deliveries although now that you mention it would say 6-9 in the evening an option

Thats only 100 euro a night before any overheads like the van, diesel, insurance, equipment loans and running costs etc. Doesnt sound at all profitable to be honest. 500 a week less costs doesnt sound worthwhile.

Deub

I agree with others about selling cheese, yoghurt, butter and eggs. I think it would attract more people.
Milk only seems risky and it is a competitive market.

jamesbondings

Couple of things to point out.

1) current prices of a litre of milk in a shop (in a carton) is more than a euro.

2) glass bottles will be a selling point for a certain demographic.

3) op gets 30cent a litre currently.... Investing in a "workshop" will allow her increase this 310%

4) difference between op and typical milkman. Op has the raw products for "free" or if you want to look at it as a cost of 30 not made

5)this business could boom, leaving op to scale rapidly. If they are able to undercut shops and have it delivered she's onto a winner.

Op I would do it. If you could pasturise it then there is no need to educate the customer. Raw materials on your doorstep coupled with the low price you get per litre..... Cut the middle man out, take their profits as your own.

Mena Mitty

We use raw milk in glass bottles from Glasson Dairy outside Athlone. I think the cows are milked, milk strained and straight into cooling. No pasteurization.

It's just like the milk we had as kids straight from the cow. Pure creamy.

Best of luck if you go down that route. Cheese and yogurt is also something to look into and the other suggestions the other posters made.

suilegorma

You mentioned that you are in Kerry, could you sell the milk at farmers markets to start out build a brand and then target the high end restaurants and hotels in the big tourist towns? There's a few zero waste markets in Dublin so if that was an option too. There's a great FB page called zero waste Ireland and I'm sure you'd get great feedback there.

Pelvis

I don't see how it would make financial sense OP. You've needed almost 50k in loans just to get buy, you'd want to be delivering a serious amount of milk to make up for it, not to mention the outlay required just to get up and running.

blackbox

Mena Mitty wrote: »

We use raw milk in glass bottles from Glasson Dairy outside Athlone. I think the cows are milked, milk strained and straight into cooling. No pasteurization.

It's just like the milk we had as kids straight from the cow. Pure creamy.

To the best of my knowledge it is illegal to sell unpasteurised milk.

The only place it may be used is in certain cheeses.

Sleeper12

I'm no use to you as a customer as I live in Dublin. We go through 3 litres per day. Used to get milk delivered but stopped. The reasons why might be a help to you.

The main reason was that he might deliver late at night or 1 am. At this time of year especially in this heat our milk could be sour before we took it in at 8pm. Even if it wasn't it would only last a day in the fridge after being out in the heat for so long.

He'd double or even triple up on deliver so it was 2 or 3 delivery per week. I wouldn't mind this if he doubled Saturday & took Sunday off, bank holiday or trippled up at Christmas.

Last thing was the bill. Quite often it was wrong. A few litres in the week. This has always been a problem. Even as a kid 40 odd years ago my mams bill was wrong. She'd write on a pad what she ordered each night and compare it with the dairy bill. They didn't always match. This wasn't the same milkman over the years. Different milkmen and different dairys.

None of this answers your questions but these are reasons why some people don't want milk deliverer. If you know why someone doesn't want your service then you have a chance of changing their minds. Free milk for the first week might be a good incentive to get someone to try your service.

Mena Mitty

blackbox wrote: »

To the best of my knowledge it is illegal to sell unpasteurised milk.

The only place it may be used is in certain cheeses.

I'm not familiar with the law. Raw milk can be bought all over Ireland. Maybe the law changed.

denismc

In Cork there is a farm doing very similar to what you are planning.
I have been to their farm and they have a small plant for pasteurizing and bottling.
They sell door to door and to health food shops.
They also have a contract with Super Valu which must be a great help.
They go by the name of Gloun Farm or Gloun Cross dairy.
It may be worth contacting them for some advice.

cathy427

Couple of thoughts OP.

I grew up on a small dairy farm that is no more so I hate the idea that hard working dairy families cant make a decent income from a great product.

On the business plan

- costs are going to be big. Glass sterilisation alone would be big job. Plus set up, building, van, insurances, health and safety/food hygiene / bord bia - these are all doable, this is not to put you off rather to go in with eyes open.

- have to educate your customer base that the milk is pasteurised and not homogenised, has very low food miles, is a genuine local product and buying it supports a local business etc.

- as others have said €100 a night is not enough of a return. Wont cover costs. Where you hoping for 100 customers or 100 bottles per night (as in some may take more than one) 100 times a night in and out of van will require thinking in terms of type of van and height of load to make it doable.

- your husband is already working 6am - to 8pm (plus calving) and now you are looking at working from 3am - to 6am/7am at the same enterprise. A 3am start to get 6 hours sleep in in bed for 9pm so ye have an hour in the day together which is not about the dairy herd. This is not sustainable.
Evening deliveries might be an option.

- I think the self service idea might be better. How remote are you? Could this be set up at farm entrance? Local crossroads? Local village?

- The issue with delivering to upmarket guesthouses etc is that unless they can put your bottle on the table there is no value to them in doing business with you. For that you are looking at smaller bottles for a single meal.
But talk to the independent hotels - its another selling point for them to say that they only use local non-homogenised milk from "Mary and John's farm" 1.6 miles away, low food miles, green product, etc etc. Couple of those contracts and you are on to a winner.

- How close are you to tourist areas? Most people on holidays are happy to pay a decent premium for locally made ice creams and yogurts sold by the farmers wife. Plus you might be able to get these into the local shops /hotels.

-Also If you went down that route you could look at the Supervalu scheme to help start ups. (but the ice cream market is already getting crowded with small brands )

- How "scale able" is your business plan?
How soon can you give up your part-time job to focus fully on the dairy?
How much time can your husband put into the venture?
What other options have you looked at - like would less output (in terms of volume of milk) from less input costs (less feed, fertiliser, silage costs) generate a greater profit margin. Ie making the existing business more lean. I know it seems alien to farmers to cut back production but if it increases the overall profit then it is worth it.

- Travel and talk to as many people as you can that have tried different things in the dairy sector.

-Talk to the enterprise board/ teagasc etc.

- Left field and outside my knowledge base but is there a market for organic milk? Is there a premium price available for it? Does the premium make it worthwhile?

-Best of luck with it and its great that you are trying something.

appledrop

We used to get milk delivered in glass bottles when we were young + my mam always drank the 'cream' from the top. Think the milk was pasturised back then but not all mixed up. Honestly though nowadays just can't see the demand for service. We have toddler so go through a lot of milk but it lasts so long now that we stock up on weekly shop then would only have to go again once during the week.

GarIT

OP has mentioned a website and app a few times, I think this will wipe out any profits before it gets started. A lot of people think an app or website is something you can do easily but it's not always especially when you need customers to be able to log in and some back end system for yourself where you can read the orders, and if you add billing on top of that it's probably going to cost €10k for the app and website and then you need to buy a server for the backend, or pay someone like Amazon for AWS.

Del2005

Henwin wrote: »

ya i was thinking that, i was trying to be cautious in the number i cud deliver before 7am, i presume everyone wud want it delivered before 7, so to deliver 100 bottles i think it would take 3 hours. i wouldnt like to be working all night if i had to double it. i doubt peoplw wud opt for day time deliveries although now that you mention it would say 6-9 in the evening an option

Along with the 100 bottles not covering the costs, would you be able to deliver the 100 bottles in 3 hours? While there will be a business for fresh milk would there be enough demand for you to be able to drive to them all and stop to do deliveries in the time you have allocated. Even if you are dropping 2 to a house that's 50 stops in 3 hours which will give you 4 minutes to do a drop and get to the next drop.

If your husband is full time on the farm and you have a part time job who will do the pre work for the milk deliveries? Who will sort and sterilize the bottles, fill the bottles, seal them, pack for distribution and then load the van. There'll be at least 2 or 3 hours work per day here.

Then there's the fun of the paperwork and managing the samples you have to keep for food safety compliance.

decky1

5 euro a pint in the local--have you thought of delivering beer door to door think you could be on to a winner there? just imagine getting up in the morning and 5 cans of Guinness on your door step.[Heaven]

onedmc

jasper100 wrote: »

My tuppence worth is that you should focus on local "artisan" shops, cafes and restaurants rather than Joe public.

I'd agree with Jasper, get a couple of euro from the public is very hard you need to go to specialist shops with premium products.

Cheese is a really good example of adding value to primary material and Adding value adds margin.

enricoh

You're in kerry, loads of tourists so. My tuppence worth, start making ice cream, convert a little caravan n get it certified, sell ice cream and coffee every Saturday n Sunday on some tourist trap road, ie kenmare to sneem, road to dingle etc etc.
U'd be amazed what u'd pull in in a day