The milkman has a special position among the professions threatened with extinction. The bottle supplier with the white painted toy car has achieved some fame as a character in a novel, film and joke. The musical “Anatevka” revolves around the milkman Tewje, Eric Clapton memorialized the profession with the song “My very good friend the milkman”. British comedian Benny Hill, himself a former milkman, stepped into sexist in the 1980s Skits that revolved around lonely housewives and lustful milkmen – meanwhile something like this is rightly considered inedible and is no longer shown.
The milkman, on the other hand, used to be a symbol of a free society: “When the doorbell rings at six in the morning,” said Winston Churchill, “and I can be sure that it’s the milkman, then I know that I am in one Live democracy. ” Nowadays that sounds like a milkman calculation. Because if anyone rings the doorbell at all, it is at most an underpaid, stressed parcel delivery man who is more of a symbol of capitalist exploitation. And milkmen (it used to be almost exclusively men who did this job) became increasingly rare because industrially processed, long-lasting cheap milk from the supermarket seemed more attractive to customers.
In Germany, too, direct marketers and start-ups offer milk deliveries free of charge
But that’s changing right now. More and more consumers place value on regional products, they don’t want plastic packaging, they pay attention to less climate-damaging supply chains – and since the beginning of the corona pandemic, the demand for food deliveries has been increasing anyway. In London, full-time milkers are again on the road, including some milk women, in contemporary electric delivery vans. In Germany, too, some direct marketers, cooperatives and start-ups offer regular milk deliveries free of charge. The customer is happy to pay a little more for the organic milk in the returnable bottle.
A milk subscription has advantages for both consumers and dairy farmers. “I am a freelance entrepreneur and no longer a serf,” says Georg Hanslmeier, a farmer in Reichertsheim in Upper Bavaria. Hanslmeier, who is on his Website “The milkman” called, had the idea long before Corona to market the milk from his 60 cows himself. You have been able to subscribe to milk from him since 2002. Thanks to its own pasteurization and filling system, the trendsetter delivers milk twice a week to the front door of its customers who live within a radius of 25 kilometers.
“Interest in our service has skyrocketed since spring 2020,” reports Hanslmeier, “after all, people are more at home and consume more milk.” The shorter delivery routes not only reduce the carbon footprint, but also get fresher, richer milk than at the discounter. It only takes one to two days from milking, pasteurizing and filling into returnable bottles to delivery. Nobody has to worry about bad milkman jokes, because the ordering and delivery process takes place without physical contact by email. “The bell is only rung on special request,” promises Hanslmeier.
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