Farm of the Week: Milk round still making sense in superstore age

The milk round, much like video players and audio cassettes, seems very much like a relic of the past as supermarkets and their giant plastic cartons of milk dominate the market.

However for the last several decades one farm just outside Leeds has been producing, processing and bottling its own milk. It also delivers directly to the customer by continuing with a milk round – and to great effect.

Beech Grove Farm, based at Scarcroft, is the home of the Goodall family who have been farming for more than a century.

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Edward and Victoria Goodall are the third generation of their family to run the farm, home to more than 200 cows and its own dairy.

From here the brother and sister employ a total of 17 people in the processing and bottling of the milk. However also on the payroll are a further 10 people who, along with an additional 26 independent milkmen, deliver the milk direct to the doorsteps of more than 14,000 people.

The number is huge and impressive, and is growing all the time as more and more people come back to the milk round, safe in the knowledge that what they are getting is high quality Yorkshire milk as fresh as it is environmentally sound.

"There is a market there," Victoria said.

"If you look after your customers then most of them will stay with you. People are wanting a local product and talking about issues like food miles and want to know where it is that their food has come from. With us they know where it has come from, from the cow to the doorstep.

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"We really want to get good at promoting that fact as we think there is a huge market for it and so that is what I am really looking to do in the next couple of years."

It is a business model that makes sense. More than two dairy farmers a day are being forced out of business, unable to cope with the low levels of income they are paid for the milk which in many cases fail to cover the cost of production.

For Victoria and Edward however, that middle man does not exist. In addition to their own milk, they also provide local dairy farmers with a market for their milk.

It was a practice started by the pair's grandfather, Thomas Dunwell.

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Edward said: "My grandfather used to deliver milk on his way to school back in 1913.

"Eight or nine years ago the supermarkets started taking everything. Some of our customers went over to them but the rest have stayed and in the past few years we have not seen much of a decline."

Edward has worked on the farm for 16 years, starting alongside his father Jimmy and his Uncle William who had, in turn, taken it over from their father.

William retired when Edward started and Jimmy retired just over a year ago when Victoria came to work there, after a career in the Royal Air Force.

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The practice of processing milk was their father's idea and showed remarkable foresight given the state of the industry .

"It was my father's idea," Victoria said. "He thought that, as well as running the farm, that we needed to do something different too – so that's when we started with the processing side of things. It expanded more and more, particularly when Edward took on more responsibility."

Given the scope of the operation it is difficult to imagine that it all began with just a small herd of 20 cows run by their grandfather.

Today they run a herd of 240 Holstein Friesians and hope to get that figure up to 300. Of the business, around two-thirds is accounted for with doorstep deliveries with a further third coming from deliveries to local shops and restaurants.

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The farm delivers other products too on its doorstep deliveries, including mineral water and eggs – all of which are sourced from within Yorkshire.

The herd is a closed one with the Goodalls having bred their own cattle for the past 15 years.

"It helps us know the background of the animals, with an insight into their health and breeding, so that we are certain we are not bringing germs into the business and into our herd and can ensure the longevity of the animal," Victoria said.

In addition the farm winters sheep from hill farmers in the Skipton area while the cattle are housed indoors. A few hundred sheep are still grazing on the land.

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Since joining the business Victoria has been keen to see more technology and efficiency systems employed on the farm. The farm is using heat sensors, attached to necklaces around the cows' necks, to detect when they are in heat and ready for breeding – saving Edward and his team time and money.

"As labour is becoming more and more short we have felt the need to bring in more and more technology," said Edward, remarking on another sign of the times.

Despite the success of the operation they are running, the family are acutely aware that their business practice is not a "one size fits all" cure for the malaise currently plaguing the sector, with Edward keen to point out that their location near to two major cities plays a big role in the work they do.

"We are very fortunate that we have got a good market on our doorstep," said Edward.

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"There is a lot of publicity about the need for farms to diversify but if you are based in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales you will not have as ready access to doorstep delivery as we do."

Log on to www. tdgoodall.co.uk for more information.

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