Island Life Magazine Ltd January/February 2006 | Page 22

FARMING
This is why most of the Georges’ milk is now produced
for local consumption, and delivered directly to hotels,
guesthouses, independent shops and the local David’s
Supermarkets chain.
They also maintain that fine old British tradition, the
daily doorstep delivery.
But a great deal of work has to be done before that
bottle clinks onto a customer’s doorstep. The average
cow weighs 600Kg, so food consumption is hefty to say
the least. In fact, a typical cow will consume about 54
kilos a day of the GM-friendly Total Mix feed, washed
down with 15 gallons of water. In return, each cow will
produce around 30 litres of milk a day, or 15 of your
average 2-litre cartons. A cow will be milked for approx
12 minutes a day to retrieve 30 litres.

Delivering
Your daily pinta
It’s easy to take that daily pint of milk for granted, and slosh it onto the
cornflakes without a thought – but few of us ever stop to consider the sheer
hard work (of man and beast) that goes into producing it.
Dairy farmer Harold George is one who does know: he’s been producing milk
for over 30 years at Coppid Hall Farm, Havenstreet, Ryde following in the
footsteps of his father Arthur, who took over the dairy farm in 1934.
By the time Harold took over from his father in 1972, the herd was running
at 60 head of cattle. Today, he and his own son Alan – now a partner in the
business - run a herd of over 140 milk-producing cows and 150 followers. In
the old days all milk produced went to the now-defunct Milk Marketing
Board, bottled in glass and distributed by Unigate of Newport. When the Milk
Marketing Board was disbanded, it was taken over by Milk Mark, and
subsequently, three years ago, by Milk Link.
Nowadays, Harold sends just his daily surplus for marketing by Milk Link,
although, like most dairy farmers, he is understandably reluctant to send
much of his produce down this route as he gets the princely sum of 17.5p
per litre … for a product that costs him at least 18p a litre to produce.

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Because of TB concerns, Harold and Alan choose to
breed most of their own stock. He explains: “It costs
around £800 to buy a cow from auction, but the
problem with this is that the cows you buy could be
infected with TB, and if this were the case, it could
spread to the whole herd, which would cost £1,000’s”.
Hence, the Georges opt to breed all their stock
themselves. It costs an estimated £650 in feed and vet’s
bills to tend the calf for two years until it’s ready to
produce its first milk.
“If you take labour out of the equation” says Harold,
“there is not much of a saving, but we are guaranteed
that the calves do not have TB.”
Each new-born calf born receives its own passport, from
the British Cattle Movement Service which stays with it
for life.

The milk production process involves decanting the
milk by pump into large glass containers. At this stage,
it is still warm, so it is passed through a chiller and into
a holding tank. From here the milk is then pasteurised,
some of it is skimmed to and then it’s packaged into
poly bottles as Full Fat, Semi Skimmed, and Skimmed.
Much of the bottling process is automated, apart from
the placing of the empty bottles onto the filling rack,
(as in picture, right) – a process that’s still done by
hand as a machine to do it would cost over £30-50,000,
and the farm does not produce enough milk to warrant this expense.

Dairy farming involves not just hard work, but long hours, Harold is up every
morning at 5am to start milking and feeding, and the bottling process
finishes at around 11.30am. In the afternoon there is the maintenance and
office work to take care of. Harold’s wife Andrea also works in the business,
mainly in the office along with their full time secretary, taking care of the
orders that come in every day.
Andrea commented: “Even if we go out of an evening, no matter what time
we get back, I always check the answerphone for orders!”
* If you fancy starting your own business running doorstep milk deliveries
in your area, all you’ll need to get started is a £7,000 pickup, together with
good sales skills. Harold already has two franchisees earning a fairly good
living – although bear in mind that the hours can be quite long and you’ll
need to be an early riser! If you’re interested, then Harold would be pleased
to hear from you. Please call 01983 882489