Selling direct to public helps squeezed farmers control prices and improves access to food in rural areas
Fizzy drinks, packets of crisps and bars of chocolate: for decades, vending machines were known as a place to grab a quick snack.
Now one family of farmers is trying to change that by bringing vending machines offering fresh milk and local produce – including scotch eggs, sausage rolls and brownies – to villages and other rural locations.
Mark James, 70, and his sons Sam, 39, and Jacob, 36, first trialled vending machines as a way of selling their milk directly to consumers, giving themselves more control over the price they receive.
“For the first time ever, we’re price makers rather than price takers,” Mark says. “If we weren’t doing [the vending machine business], we’d have to think about giving up milk.”
Just under a third (30%) of the 4,500 litres of milk produced each day by the family’s herd of 130 dairy cows at Bodenham in Herefordshire is sold at their 17 Whole Moo World vending machines, located across Herefordshire and the neighbouring counties of Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Shropshire. The remaining 70% is sold to a local milk processor.
When Whole Moo World took off, Jacob and Sam branched out into retailing cakes, sandwiches and other treats made by small local producers from vending machines. Their business, Tuckshop, now has 22 sites, mostly alongside the milk machines, and also allows them to sell empty glass bottles for milk.
Jacob says farmers are “waking up” to the advantages of selling directly to consumers, even if they do not have a suitable location or the funds needed to build their own farm shop.
He believes vending machines could be the answer for villages and small rural communities at risk of becoming “food deserts”, where lower-income households struggle to find fresh healthy food amid closures of local shops and poor public transport.
They also promise a more profitable way for squeezed farmers to reach customers directly and avoid expensive fees for intermediaries.
Dairy producers in Britain and beyond have suffered in recent years from a boom and bust price cycle, where the price of milk, a globally traded commodity, has been extremely volatile. Strong global demand for dairy has usually led to farmers increasing their herd size and upping production, followed by oversupply and a crash in the milk price.
Farmgate milk prices began to tumble again earlier this year, Mark says. “In August last year we were paid 44p a litre, and ever since the beginning of February it’s been down at 30p a litre.”
For many dairy farmers, including the Jameses, this price does not cover the cost of production. Margins in the industry have always been tight and UK supermarkets have traditionally used low milk prices to tempt shoppers through the door, and the milk processing sector is dominated by three main players – Arla, Müller and First Milk.
British supermarkets are currently charging between £1.20 and £1.30 for a two-pint, or 1.1-litre, bottle of milk.
Whole Moo World customers pay £1.50 for a litre of the family’s unhomogenised milk – where the cream has not been separated from the milk during processing – delivered into a refillable glass bottle, which customers can buy once in the vending machines and wash and reuse.
