There is nothing nicer than cold milk out of a glass bottle: Many would agree with the this statement by Tommy Relihan of Adare Farm. Whether it is taste, nostalgia or something else entirely, in general people like the idea of milk in a glass bottle, condensation rolling down the side.

The days of the dawn doorstep delivery are not in the too-distant past, and many readers will remember the early morning rattle of the milk float as glass bottles made their way to front doors.

Now plastic and paperboard containers bought in supermarkets are the most popular choice by far, but a select few producers are still supplying milk in glass bottles, so there is a level of demand there.

Irish Country Living speaks to a couple of producers with experience in using glass bottles, to find out if they think a comeback could ever be on the cards.

Adare Farm

Adare Farm, based in Co Limerick, used to sell pasteurised, unhomogenised milk in both glass and plastic bottles through supermarkets and doorstep deliveries. They had been selling milk under their own name for six years when they decided to stop and take the business in a different direction, now specialising in ice-cream and offering a pig-on-a-spit service.

Owner Tommy explains that the doorstep deliveries and returns through independent sellers went very well for them, but supermarkets posed more of an issue, as there was no way of getting the bottles back to reuse them.

“In the supermarket it would have worked better if there was some system of getting the bottles back. People didn’t like the idea of getting milk in a glass bottle and then disposing of it after one use,” reflects Tommy on his past business venture.

“They were thinking it wasn’t great for the environment that you only got one use out of it and then it would go to be recycled. If there was a system with the supermarket where you would get the used [bottle] back again, it would work much better.”

Adare Farm milk sold in many of the larger supermarkets: Dunnes Stores, SuperValu and Tesco. Their glass bottles retailed for a much higher price than their plastic alternatives. Two litres in a plastic bottle cost €2.49, while one litre in a glass bottle was €2.29.

In most supermarkets you can get two litres of milk for as little as €1.49. The one litre in a glass bottle was a premium price, says Tommy and may not have been cost-effective for families with several children.

Going forward, Tommy does think it is possible for a business to be viable selling milk in glass bottles, but it would require being located on the fringes of a large urban population.

“If I was on the outskirts of Dublin city I would have had a better chance of making a go of it. The biggest thing that added to our cost was distribution, because we didn’t have any economy of scale.

“Half our sales were in Dublin and Cork. We were going into the stores, but we didn’t have huge volumes. The sums just didn’t add up.”

Crawford’s

In 2014 Crawford’s Farm in Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary, decided to start selling raw milk. Like almost all producers selling milk in glass bottles, they also have a plastic alternative. They sell through a variety of channels: doorstep deliveries, directly to the customer and through retailers. Glass bottles are only offered to regular customers and in select retailers.

The dairy farmer who is one half of the force behind the venture, Owen Crawford, says they run a deposit system on the glass bottles as an incentive for them to be returned.

“If a customer’s order is six bottles per week, they pay 50c per bottle as a deposit, which is returned at the end of each year or when the bottles are given back and no longer needed again.

“The deposit system is fairly loose. We actually start people off on plastic and the reason we do that is sometimes someone might buy it, decide they don’t like it and they have your bottles, which you might never see again,” explains Owen.

“Even with the deposit you still want to get your bottles back, even if they do pay you for them it is still in your best interest to get them back.”

Fantastic (in theory)

Elizabeth Ryan of Raw Milk Ireland, an organisation that deal with a lot of the producers providing milk in glass bottles, says that, from her experience, people do appear to want milk in glass bottles, but the logistics often get in the way.

“Theoretically, the appetite from consumers is there, but in practice it is not. Consumers want to buy glass bottles, but don’t return them. It is one of those things people think, in theory, is fantastic.” CL