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Doorstep round · glass bottles · before six, three mornings a week
The first question is whether we come down your road. Everything else is milk.
Anybody can sell you milk. What you're actually buying from a dairy is that somebody arrives at your door before six, three mornings a week, for years — and a round only works where it's dense. So this page answers the geography first, and if the answer is no, it tells you exactly what would change it.
3Mornings a week
5amWhen the van sets off
3Houses a road needs before we come
40Cows, and they all have names
The third one is the number that decides everything on this page, and it's the number no dairy publishes. Put your own in — if it's five, say five.
Do we come down your road?
Roughly this area, and the edges move. The map is a guide — the postcode box at the bottom of this page gives a yes or a no rather than a maybe.
The round is the product, not the milk — The milk is good and so is plenty of milk. What is hard, and what people actually pay for, is somebody being there at ten to six on a Tuesday in February
We come down a road once three houses want it — Two houses on a long lane costs more in diesel and minutes than the milk is worth. Pretending otherwise is how doorstep rounds quietly go under
A postcode gets a yes or a no — Not a "we'll see". A maybe is how somebody ends up waiting six weeks for a delivery that was never going to start
The edges of the round move — Both ways. A road that was too thin two years ago might not be now, so it's worth asking again even if you've been told no before
Three mornings, and yours is fixed — Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Which of those is your road's is decided by where you sit on the route, not by preference
Moving house within the round — Tell us the week before and nothing changes except the address. Moving out of it, we'll say who covers your new road if anybody does
We come down a road once three houses want it — Two houses on a long lane costs more in diesel and minutes than the milk is worth. Pretending otherwise is how doorstep rounds quietly go under
A postcode gets a yes or a no — Not a "we'll see". A maybe is how somebody ends up waiting six weeks for a delivery that was never going to start
The edges of the round move — Both ways. A road that was too thin two years ago might not be now, so it's worth asking again even if you've been told no before
Three mornings, and yours is fixed — Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Which of those is your road's is decided by where you sit on the route, not by preference
Moving house within the round — Tell us the week before and nothing changes except the address. Moving out of it, we'll say who covers your new road if anybody does
If we don't come down your road yet
A no from a dairy is almost always a no about density rather than about you, which means it's a no you can do something about.
Two neighbours is the whole answer — Three houses on a road and it works. That is the entire threshold and it is why this section exists rather than a waiting list that never moves
We'll give you cards to put through doors — Printed, with the days and the prices on. It feels like a strange thing to ask a customer to do and it is how most new roads on this round started
A new road gets an eight-week trial — If it holds up, it's permanent. If it doesn't, we say so at the end of the eight weeks rather than drifting away from it
Roads get dropped too, and we give a month — In writing, with the names of anybody else who covers the area. Vanishing off a doorstep without a word is the thing this whole trade is remembered for
Workplaces, halls and schools count — A village hall or an office is worth three houses and it often unlocks the road for everybody else on it
Why we don't just come anyway — Because a round that loses money on four roads stops existing for the other forty. Saying no to you today is what keeps us on somebody else's doorstep in five years
We'll give you cards to put through doors — Printed, with the days and the prices on. It feels like a strange thing to ask a customer to do and it is how most new roads on this round started
A new road gets an eight-week trial — If it holds up, it's permanent. If it doesn't, we say so at the end of the eight weeks rather than drifting away from it
Roads get dropped too, and we give a month — In writing, with the names of anybody else who covers the area. Vanishing off a doorstep without a word is the thing this whole trade is remembered for
Workplaces, halls and schools count — A village hall or an office is worth three houses and it often unlocks the road for everybody else on it
Why we don't just come anyway — Because a round that loses money on four roads stops existing for the other forty. Saying no to you today is what keeps us on somebody else's doorstep in five years
What's on the round
Ordered through the dairy's own shop rather than here — nothing is paid for on this page. Swap these for your own and put the herd on the label.
Whole milk, 2 pints in glass
Pasteurised, not homogenised, so the cream sits at the top and you shake it. That's not a fault and it is the thing people notice first.
Add it at the dairy shopSemi-skimmed, 2 pints in glass
Same milk, some of the cream taken off and sold as cream. Most of the round is this and there's no shame in it.
Add it at the dairy shopDouble cream, 250ml
Ordered by Thursday for a Saturday. Whips in about a minute rather than five, which catches people out the first time.
Add it at the dairy shopSalted butter, 250g
Churned once a week from the same herd. Yellower in summer and paler in winter, because that's what grass does to it.
Add it at the dairy shopThe bottles, and the deposit
A glass bottle does about twenty round trips — That's where the environmental argument actually lives — not in the glass, in the twenty. A bottle used once is worse than a plastic one and it's worth being straight about that
The deposit isn't a charge — It comes back when the bottle does, and it exists because bottles that cost nothing don't come back. It's on the first invoice and it's refunded on the last
Rinsed, not washed — Cold water, straight after the last of it, and out on the step. A dishwasher is more effort than it needs and takes the frosting off the glass
Forget them and nothing happens — You'll get your milk anyway. We'd just rather not be buying new bottles because a fortnight's worth are in somebody's porch
Chipped or cracked goes in the recycling — Not back on the step. A chipped rim is a cut hand at half past five in the dark
Plastic exists, and we'd rather you didn't — But it's there for anybody who genuinely can't manage glass — arthritis, a doorstep with steps, a flat with nowhere safe. That's a real reason and nobody will be asked to justify it
The deposit isn't a charge — It comes back when the bottle does, and it exists because bottles that cost nothing don't come back. It's on the first invoice and it's refunded on the last
Rinsed, not washed — Cold water, straight after the last of it, and out on the step. A dishwasher is more effort than it needs and takes the frosting off the glass
Forget them and nothing happens — You'll get your milk anyway. We'd just rather not be buying new bottles because a fortnight's worth are in somebody's porch
Chipped or cracked goes in the recycling — Not back on the step. A chipped rim is a cut hand at half past five in the dark
Plastic exists, and we'd rather you didn't — But it's there for anybody who genuinely can't manage glass — arthritis, a doorstep with steps, a flat with nowhere safe. That's a real reason and nobody will be asked to justify it
It arrives before six, and that's the point
Before six, in every weather — Snow included, and the two mornings a decade it isn't possible you'll hear why. A round that only runs in good weather isn't a round
Tell us exactly where to leave it — Behind the bin, in the porch, under the bench. A precise instruction is worth more than any note and it never changes once it's written down
It keeps outside better than people think — All morning in winter. In July, get it in by eight — or put a cool box on the step, which is what everybody who's been on the round a while does
Cats, foxes and magpies — Magpies go through foil, foxes take the cream. A box or an upturned bucket solves both and costs nothing
Skipping a week is one message — By the night before. Holidays, a fortnight away, a week where nobody's drinking tea — pausing is normal and it's better than milk on a doorstep
Paying is monthly, by standing order — With a paper statement through the door. There is no app, no account to make and no password to lose, and that is deliberate
Tell us exactly where to leave it — Behind the bin, in the porch, under the bench. A precise instruction is worth more than any note and it never changes once it's written down
It keeps outside better than people think — All morning in winter. In July, get it in by eight — or put a cool box on the step, which is what everybody who's been on the round a while does
Cats, foxes and magpies — Magpies go through foil, foxes take the cream. A box or an upturned bucket solves both and costs nothing
Skipping a week is one message — By the night before. Holidays, a fortnight away, a week where nobody's drinking tea — pausing is normal and it's better than milk on a doorstep
Paying is monthly, by standing order — With a paper statement through the door. There is no app, no account to make and no password to lose, and that is deliberate
★★★★★
“We went to the supermarket version for a year to save money and came back. It wasn't the milk. It was that there's always milk.”
A customer, back on the round
Raw milk, and who decides
The one part of a dairy's page where getting the tone wrong matters. Here is ours, and you should write your own to match wherever you actually are.
Whether it can be sold to you at all is not our decision — The food-safety authority where you live decides that, and the rules differ by country and sometimes within one. Look up your own — we'll say what applies here and we won't guess at what applies to you
Where it is allowed, it carries a required warning — That warning is not decoration and it is not a formality somebody talked a regulator into. It says what it says because of what can happen
What the risk actually is — Unpasteurised milk can carry bacteria that pasteurising removes. It is uncommon, and it is serious in the cases where it isn't
Who should not drink it — Children under five, anybody pregnant, older people, and anybody whose immune system is suppressed. That is not us being cautious — it's the standing advice in every place where it's legal at all
What it is not — It is not a treatment for anything, it does not fix lactose intolerance, and there is no health claim we are permitted to make or would want to make
What we do instead of claiming — Publish the test results, monthly, with the date on them. That is the only genuinely useful thing a dairy can offer here, and any farm selling raw milk should be doing it where you can see
Where it is allowed, it carries a required warning — That warning is not decoration and it is not a formality somebody talked a regulator into. It says what it says because of what can happen
What the risk actually is — Unpasteurised milk can carry bacteria that pasteurising removes. It is uncommon, and it is serious in the cases where it isn't
Who should not drink it — Children under five, anybody pregnant, older people, and anybody whose immune system is suppressed. That is not us being cautious — it's the standing advice in every place where it's legal at all
What it is not — It is not a treatment for anything, it does not fix lactose intolerance, and there is no health claim we are permitted to make or would want to make
What we do instead of claiming — Publish the test results, monthly, with the date on them. That is the only genuinely useful thing a dairy can offer here, and any farm selling raw milk should be doing it where you can see
Check your postcode
A yes or a no within two working days. If it's a no, the reply says how many more houses your road needs and includes the cards to put through doors.
Check your postcode
"Interested in raw milk" gets the honest answer above rather than a sales reply, including the sentence about who it isn't for.
Live preview — every color, word and block is editable after you pick it.