Doorstep deliveries return to East Lancashire

A new company has launched to offer low-waste, locally-sourced grocery shopping delivered to the customer's door.

The Modern Milkman has been established by Paul White and Thomas Shaw, owners of Wise Owl Creative, Simon Mellin, who founded the successful Roaming Roosters brand before selling it two years ago, and his Becky Hilton.

The idea behind the company began with David Attenborough’s Blue Planet, which focussed on the plight of plastic in our oceans, when the team decided that there was a gap in the market for younger people to access doorstep delivered glass bottled milk and plastic-free grocery deliveries.

Paul said: “The model really is two-fold, split into deliveries and tech. We’re building a delivery network of our own staff as well as franchisees, and then the tech element is an app, which will launch soon, that allows customers to order their milk and other products direct from their phone. That’s sent straight to our distribution hubs and to mapping software in the milk floats."

Paul added: "The market research we commissioned clearly showed that the Instagram generation wanted this, if it could be delivered in the most convenient way possible, was plastic free and locally sourced, and we’ve managed to do that. The take up has been phenomenal. It’s far exceeded our expectations."

The first milkround took place two months ago, and hundreds of customers have signed up since.

Simon explained: “We all have a huge passion for locally sourced produce and want to reduce plastic waste, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity for us all. All of our produce is from Lancashire.

“We’re now at the stage of rolling out to cover from Burnley to the North Yorkshire border, which should all happen within the next month and take us past 1,000 customers. We’re developing the product range too and then the plan is to roll the tech out nationally via a mixture of our own rounds and franchisees." The Modern Milkman’s fleet of new vehicles will arrive soon from vehicle partner XLCR Vehicle Management and they have made a commitment that all groceries will be plastic free. The App will roll out in January.