I’m in the throes of a wonderful discussion with my kids about the old fashioned notion of a bloke delivering your pint or two of milk every morning. And I said that the milkman was an extinct species, only to be challenged by kid who said that there must be somewhere in the world where the milkman is still in operation.
So, dear Dopers, do you know of anywhere in the world where the milkman still home-delivers milk?*
In a place I used to live iN NZ there was, and I saw one recently in Hobart, Tas as well
Well, dunno about milk, but in Viet Nam (assuming you have the money), you need never leave your house - for foor and drink, at least. Hawkers and travelling vendors sell everything. You can set your watch by them: “that’ll be the jellied sweets guy… that’ll be the pork roll guy…” Although Viet Nam is an Asian country in which use of milk isn’t widespread, I’d guess you’d find it in less developed European places… Albania and the like. And it probably exists still in isolated pockets in Australia, the USA etc, but that’s a complete guess.
We get milk, butter, and the like delivered every week. Yes, Virginia, there are milkmen. At least in Chicagoland.
Bugger.
I lose five bucks.
But think of what I have gained in knowledge!!
We have them in the UK as well.
There are plans , when the Post Office monopoly is ended , for milkmen to deliver mail as well. In fact during a recent postal strike these plans were going to be implemented straight away if the strike did not end.
Not five bucks worth, I’m afraid
in my suburb of Boston -not that far out- the local dairy still delivered fairly recently. By coincidence, I happened to live here in high school. My family never got deliveries, nor did my friends growing up, but we lived across the street from a (rather cranky) milkman who threw nasty pajama’d fits if we made any noise after 9 pm, regaling us with tales of woe and early deliveries. I often saw his truck in front of his house, and ran into him one day, regrettably. when a girlfriend dragged me to the dairy for “really fresh milk”
Now that I think about it, I could use regular milk deliveries now, since bread, milk and good lettuce seem to be staples that most often send us shopping. I guess I’ll make a few phone calls on Monday!
India here.We too have milkmen coming here twice a day(early in the morning and then in the evening) and deliver you fresh milk if you want.The prices are pretty much the same as packet or pouch milk that you can get.
They use slightly modified bicycles or mopeds to go around.
Here in Colombia, you just call the store and they deliver anything, milk included, to your home. It is great for a recluse. Of course, you pay a little more for the delivery service, but whatever you pay for the service is a pittance.
Here in Monmouth County, New Jersey, Welsh Farms will deliver items such as milk, eggs, bread, and orange juice. You have a metal milk box on your front porch, and the milkman comes around 4:30 AM. You have a standing order, and pay once a month. Quite useful if you have a houseful of hungry youngsters.
Please allow me to introduce Vern the Milkman, my local area milk delivery man.
In New Zealand, you can still get milk bottles delivered. They then collect them and wash them for future use. Damn cool.
Salt Lake City’s Winder Dairy still has home delivery service.
We have them here, too - northwest of England. They go round in milk floats at five miles an hour.
The last time I was in Scotland the milkmen were still going strong.
Currently, in the Fargo, ND & Moorhead, MN area, you can have home delivery of milk, dairy products, and others (orange juice, etc.) from the farmer-owned co-op, Cass-Clay Creamery.
I used to help the milkman deliver milk when I was a 11 as a Saturday job, it was great fun and he was a really cool guy. Unfortunatley they changed it into a franchise system and he stood to lose about £10,000 a year so he sold the franchise to someone else and retired. I don’t know if the other guy is still doing the round but I hope so. The milkman I worked for was so much more than just a delivery guy, he had known people on his route for 25 years and was often the only person some of the older people talked to most days. Everyone loved him and the village threw a big party down at the local pub for him on his last day - I still miss him, he was pretty much a surrogate dad for me at the time because I didn’t see my father much occasionally him and his wife would take me and sometimes a friend to an amusment park or zoo (he didn’t have his own children at the time) and he used to chat to me about my mum leaving. All in all he was a really top bloke.
Does anyone remember that comic book about “the world’s meanest milkman”?