Family-run dairy farm brings milk vending machine to Derbyshire village

Lizzy’s family have run a farm for 100 years with the milk going to a commercial wholesaler for the past decade: but with the conglomerate only paying 37p per litre produced - less than it costs to make - the traditional dairy industry business model is proving to be unsustainable.

And so in a bid to re-energize the business the partners have purchased a vending machine that allows villagers to get fresh milk from within eyeshot of the very cows it came from.

Speaking to the Derbyshire Times, Matthew said the dairy industry has typically been reluctant to change but that this was a step in the right direction.

He commented: “It’s nice to be able to get local milk in the village again, people walk past the cows everyday and they can know where that milk comes from. It’s probably been more than 20 years since the village had a proper shop and people walk past these cows everyday so it just seemed to make sense. We can’t compete with supermarket prices, don’t get me wrong, but we’re pricing it to cover our costs whereas the Muller milk does not cover the costs.”

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The farm itself has just over 130 milking cows with the entire process done in-house, allowing milk to go from udder to bottle in under three hours.

According to the NFU the number of dairy farmers has fallen from 35,700 in 1995 to around 7,800 in 2023.

The milk vending machine has been ‘live’ since Monday (July 24) with around a dozen bottles sold on their first.

Matthew said: ““If we stay the way we are doing things: we’ve already agreed to buy two additional vending machines so we’re just trying to work out locations and speak to local businesses. The more milk we can get out the better so there’s definitely reason to be excited.

“This is a family business and we want to provide local people with fresh produce and support the dairy industry for the next generation because it won’t survive much longer if it doesn’t diversify.”