selling milk direct from farm

blackdog1 wrote: »

I heard Ballymaloe are selling Unpasteurised milk straight from a jersey farm in their shop in Ballymaloe.

No it's straight forward enough , a friend of mine is doing it and it's labeled as raw milk and he can't keep it bottled quick enough , he farms near a large town and sells in the local farmers market at the weekends , have to get talking to him about how he's getting on

farisfat wrote: »

Im watching lorries race from one end of the country to the other and back again.
Can pasteurising and selling direct to door or local shop not leave more money in the farmers pocket.

very cost ineffective to have small localised bottling plants, we used to have that situation , most have long gone.

it would only work if people didnt seek to buy cheap milk

There's a new raw milk company started near enough to me 'For Gut Sake' it's called & €2 for a litre. I don't use much milk so I don't mind paying a bit extra cause it's delicious.

farisfat wrote: »

I don't think it could cost .70c to get milk from farm to door or.....I could be completely wrong..

Let's crunch the numbers
What's milk at the minute .32c?
You need to buy bottles .30c ish
And labels depends on volume say .15c
A fridge to store it
A delivery method van/stall at a market
And then you have to deal with loosing your customers during the winter months and then trying to get them back in spring.

pedigree 6 wrote: »

Why would you loose your customers during the winter?
Cornflakes still need milk.

How do know how much a carton and label costs?

The carton cost is pulled out of my arse but the label cost is roughly right

I'm assuming that the dairy farm is a typical one i.e. Not liquid milk

The last supplier (somewhere in Cork) I got raw milk off used to give a discount if you brought back your used bottles too.

Water John wrote: »

Yeah, those figures for bottle and label are daft.
Is it going to be pastuerised?
I presume it's not being homogenised.
Are you going to standardise the fat content?
Is it a refridgerated van?

Year round production and supply.

There are farms selling it diff ways.
There are also small local bottling plants in places.

For small order high quality labels it's right, at least for the company I was dealing with.
You can get refrigerated trailers so you mightn't need a fridge van

BoatMad wrote: »

There is no way local farm orientated bottling would be cost effective , done on a local co-op basis , it might have some traction , but we tried this and it failed

Also long term the sale of bottled raw milk is not sustainable

Local farmer tried this too, the amount of paper work was beyond unbelievable

pedigree 6 wrote: »

It appears farmers don't do their sums.

Thats an understatement , at times

Do the home work.
See a local commercial brand in a few local shops.
Initially, it would be easy enough to buy in, winter supplies.

All the effort, may not be worth the margin. At any time in the research be prepared to walk away from it. Be very realistic to yourself.

pedigree 6 wrote: »

Surely you make your own sales though.
I mean the producer is the salesman.
If your not a salesman (with a quality product) forget it.

well someone has to actually pay you money , those people are your sales figures

There's a lady and her son producing lullaby milk in Kanturk it helps you sleep, they milk the cows at 2am to produce it. http://www.lullabymilk.com/

I rang her about maiden heifers one time a fine tough lady. I asked her over the phone how much she wanted for them she answered how much will you pay. I said around 700, Hmmm was the reply :rolleyes: I was told after that they only have middling enough cows.