Last week I finished off my blog by deciding to try and find a local source of milk which would a) mean the farmer got a fair price b) would have travelled less miles to get to our table and c) would be fresher therefore benefit us from the inside out. Since I set out to do more research milk has been in the news a lot. With prices for farmers dropping and dairies not getting paid on time the whole thing has hit the headlines. The Daily Mail produced a helpful list of how much the supermarkets pay for their milk, helping people like me, who want to pay a fair price, gauge how to do that.
While all this was going we took a trip to a real-life dairy farm. My daughter marvelled at the 3 week old calves while a friend we took with us was genuinely amazed my the size of the dairy cows (it was his first up close experience).
Our Cow Molly is pretty famous in Sheffield for their fresh milk and delicious ice-cream, the ginger and lemon is pretty special. This dairy ticked all the boxes, it’s only 4 miles from our house (and delivers to two very local shops in Walkley) which makes it both low in carbon footprint and very fresh plus the farmers gets a fair price. We bought a pint (not before sampling their delicious brownies) and headed back to give it a go.
The Taste Test
Now this is the point where I have to admit that I don’t drink much milk! I do have it on cereal but (and I know this sounds weird) I have been known to eat cereal dry, though not Weetabix, never Weetabix! My husband however is a big coffee drinker and along with our daughter has become somewhat of a milk connoisseur with all the flat whites, baby-chinos and cappuccinos that are produced in our kitchen. Therefore finding a more ethical milk option is great but his question was ‘will it taste better?’. We know that fresher milk will be better for us but as the main milk user his question was fair.
So 5 testers, 20 glasses of milk from Tesco (49p for one pint) and Our Cow Molly (59p for one pint), semi-skimmed and whole, and the simple question ‘which do you prefer?’.
The results were Tesco – 3, Our Cow Molly – 7. And the most important vote? My husband definitely preferred local, which he said also made a better coffee.
So for the rest of this month I’ll be endeavouring to skip buying milk during my weekly shop and will brave the gale-force winds to buy local!
Next week to finish the ‘Month of Milk’ I’ll be reflecting on the question of cost, pondering whether been ethical will always cost more and asking ’is ethical ever an option for those on a budget?’…answers on a postcard!