New Hope for Real Milk

With all the mayhem over the banking crisis, no one much noticed the closure of a small, farm dairy in Hampshire. Except, that is for the hundreds of local families who thought their neighbourhood milk the best they’d ever tasted. For them the demise of Daisy’s Dairy was little short of a disaster.

Now there’s news that this pioneering dairy may re-open under community ownership. It could provide a blue-print for bringing fresh, healthy, local milk back to neighbourhoods all over the country.

Before the set-back few who tasted Daisy’s milk ever wanted to go back to the supermarket version. They found it far fresher and more flavoursome than any shop-bought milk – better, too, than the milk delivered by big dairy companies. James and Helen Hague, who ran the enterprise from their small farm at Rotherwick, near Hook, pulled out all the stops to produce healthy milk and get it onto the doorsteps of local families in double quick time.

As an exercise in bringing a high quality food to local people the enterprise worked like a dream. Within a year of setting up they were delivering 1400 pints a day to 600 delighted families. Two years later they were delivering to 1,500 homes as well as farm shops and village stores. They had been national winners of UKTV Food’s Local Hero award.

Sadly the credit crunch forced the hard-working couple to close the business. Hundreds of local customers felt devastated by the loss of “the best milk they ever tasted”. These are some of the things they said in e-mails to the Hagues.

“We are really shocked and sorry to hear you are closing. It is such a shame… your milk tastes so lovely.”

“It will be so sad to lose you. You were doing so well and providing such a wonderful product.”

“It was so wonderful having a local, fresh delivery of milk…”

“The whole family looked forward to the mornings when the fresh milk was delivered.”

I first met James and Helen about a year after they started selling milk direct to the families who lived close to Lyde Green Farm, Rotherwick. By then the business was thriving. Talking to the couple I soon realised why.

After a number of years working in the dairy industry James realised that the standard, every-day milk on offer in supermarkets is pretty dire. On farms it’s produced intensively at the lowest possible cost, while in the big dairies who supply the supermarkets it’s treated as a cheap industrial commodity.

His marketing plan for Lyde Green Farm was simple. First they would produce high quality milk by feeding the cows mainly on traditional feeds like fresh grass and silage. And they wouldn’t spoil it by over-processing – just basic pasteurisation, and that’s all. No homogenisation or other damaging processes.

Finally the bottled milk would be delivered to customers within hours of it coming out of the cow. Most supermarket milk takes days to get on the shelf.

The plan worked brilliantly. Families supplied from the Hampshire farm loved the taste of this truly fresh milk. As word spread more and more locals signed up. Many said they had never known milk that tasted so good. Now, for the moment, the product is no more, though hopes are growing that it may soon be on the doorsteps again.

The setback was caused – in part – by the credit crisis. With the world financial system in disarray James has found it impossible to get the capital he needed to continue the business. So he has been forced to close it.

He told me: “I’m convinced there’s a future for our system. But as first generation farmers working on our own with no help, and with the present state of the banks, we were under terrible pressure. We felt it was too much for us as a family to keep battling on without some financial assistance.”

Now there’s hope that the enterprise will soon re-open as a not-for-profit enterprise supported by the community. Subscribers and sponsors will not just enjoy real local milk again. Through open days and farm walks they’ll get the chance to get more involved in the life of their local dairy farm.

There’s also the chance that the new venture – called The Daisy Trust – will become a model for the formation of local milk enterprises up and down the country.

The Hagues’ successful is a challenge to the British dairy industry. They’ve proved there’s a large and growing demand for milk that’s local, fresh and genuinely healthy. Plenty of people want real, whole-foods in place of the mass-produced, dumbed down stuff we’re usually presented with today, especially when these foods are local. It’s time to bring our food back home.