The re-use of glass milk bottles, convenience of online ordering and the desire to support independent businesses has seen thousands of customers in Greater Manchester ditch supermarkets to return to a more personal delivery service.
A resurgence in old-fashioned doorstep milk rounds has seen one small firm expand from a single route to more than 30 rounds in just five years.
Re-using bottles and supporting local businesses
The re-using of glass bottles, the convenience of online ordering and the desire to support independent businesses has seen thousands of customers in Greater Manchester ditch supermarkets to return to a more personal delivery service.
One such provider is Bolton-based Smithills Milk and Ice Creamery, which ventured into the doorstep delivery business in 2019. The Grimshaw family at Smithills Open Farm has been milking cows at the site for more than 30 years.
Farmer Carl Grimshaw, 40, who runs the farm with father Anthony, said it was his long held aspiration to sell the milk produced there.
He said:
We milked cows in front of the public at the farm and it was our intention to be able to sell ilk to our visiting public.
In 2019 we had the opportunity to invest into a brand new processing plant but our plan at that time was just to process milk to sell to the farm visitors.
But then around the same time someone really local to us was selling a milk round for the Markland Hill area of Bolton. When we heard this we thought ‘let’s do it, if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work’.
So we took a risk, put it on our social media that we were starting to deliver our own milk from our own farm. It went crazy, all of a sudden we went from having one milk round of 300 doorstep customers to a fortnight later having three milk rounds with 1,000 customers.
Now they have grown to 31 rounds
Fast forward to 2025 and Smithills Milk and Ice Creamery now has 31 milk rounds delivering six days a week over large areas of northern Greater Manchester and Lancashire.
The delivery areas cover the whole of Bolton, the majority Bury and Blackburn, Clifton, Walkden, Worsley, Little Hulton, Atherton, Leigh, Hindley, Ince, Aspull, Adlington and the edge of Chorley.
The firm employs 31 milk delivery drivers, five people in butter, ice cream and yoghurt production and five in milk production. It processes around 4,000 litres of milk a day and earlier this year passed the milestone of 11,000 doorstep customers.
The operation has two farms of cattle, a herd of pedigree Jersey cows at Smithills and another two miles away which nurtures and milks pedigree Holstein cattle.
Carl said:
We pride ourselves on the quality of the cows which provide the milk. We are proud of how we look after our animals.
Milkshakes and Auntie Ann’s deserts
The level of customer support allowed the business to expand its product line, adding to the traditional milk, cream, eggs and yoghurt.
Carl said:
Milkshakes are one of our best sellers. We have five different basic flavours, vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, bubblegum and banana.
The colours are eye catching and the company which provides our syrups do other one-off specials – so we’ve had Biscoff, Bueno, Cookies n’ Cream and Pistachio flavoured shakes
Another expansion in the range came when Carl’s aunt, Ann Pyle joined the business and introduced ‘Auntie Ann’s’ range of desserts.
She got made redundant from her job in a kitchen and she has taken on the side of the business making cheesecakes and crumbles, trifles and Manchester tarts,” Carl said.
That snowballed literally overnight and there are specials from the delivery vans every week.
Covid changed the business for the better
Carl credits a key change in customer behaviour to the Covid pandemic which led to many customers continuing with home deliveries.
He explains:
Covid led to a step change in our business. Had we not had the doorstep deliveries it would have probably finished us as a business.
The visitor element of the farm closed completely so it was our only way of any income so it kept us afloat. We went from 2,000 doorstep customers to 6,500 within six months.
We used a lot of the farm staff to help manage it because they weren’t working on the farm, they came into the office to help us. I was sometimes sleeping there to process the orders.
After the pandemic we kept around 80 per cent of those customers. The feedback we had was ‘we like it this way’, the field to doorstep ethos.
I think it highlighted how important it was to look after local businesses. The support we’ve continued to get from so many local people is unbelievable, it wasn’t like ‘we’ll now go back to the supermarket’.
Small or large bottles
Customer Margaret Stevens, 79, who lives in Lostock, is one such ‘pandemic’ customer who has continued the service and receives deliveries three times a week.
She said:
I saw Smithills advertised in 2020 and thought having milk and eggs delivered would be sensible with all the restrictions. They do litre bottles of milk as well as pints and that size suits me.
It makes me satisfied to help a local business and what’s more convenient than having it delivered? It’s a shame that milk rounds declined so I’m glad they’re making a comeback.
Milk rounds are everywhere
The ‘milkman renaissance’ nationally was indicated earlier this year when delivery firm Milk & More announced a plan to expand its existing 700 UK rounds to cover London, West Sussex, Kent, Derbys, Herts and the West Midlands.
The business, which traces its roots back 100 years, was recently sold by dairy giant Muller to Freshways.
A Local Democracy article by Chris Gee
All pictures provided by Local Democracy Service, credit ‘Smith’
