Milk needed to reach customers quickly
Fresh milk has a short shelf life. Without refrigerators and refrigerated transport, it had to travel quickly from farm to town and be drunk as soon as possible.
The farmer came to town
Milk delivery expanded rapidly from the second half of the nineteenth century. Cities grew, and more people lived far from the farms producing their milk. Farmers, traders and milk sellers therefore brought milk to their customers.
Initially they used handcarts, dog carts, delivery bicycles and horse-drawn wagons. Some of Amsterdam’s milk even arrived by boat from Waterland, the rural area north of the city. Once in town, it was distributed among smaller carts and sold door to door.
The name milkman persisted even when the delivery worker was no longer usually a farmer. Official terms often meant milk vendor or milk retailer.
Taking a jug to the churn
Early milkmen sold milk loose. Large metal churns stood on their carts. Customers came outside with their own jug, saucepan or bucket. Using a measure, the milkman ladled or poured half a litre or a litre from the churn.
This differed from a modern shop. Milk met the open air, and the jugs were not always clean. Milk was also sometimes diluted with water or adulterated in other ways. Particularly in rapidly growing cities, better supervision became necessary.
Milk-processing establishments and dairy factories therefore appeared in the late nineteenth century. They processed, checked and distributed milk on a larger scale. Pasteurisation, standardisation and stricter rules made it safer. The milkman gradually changed from a trader supplying his own milk into a distributor of dairy-factory products.
The glass milk bottle
In the twentieth century, glass bottles became the familiar face of milk delivery. They stood in metal crates on the cart, sealed with aluminium-foil caps. Their colour often showed the contents: milk, buttermilk, yoghurt or vla, a pourable custard popular in the Netherlands.
People who were out left empty bottles outside, sometimes with a note for the next order. The milkman collected the empties and placed full bottles by the door. Bottle deposits were recorded or settled on the next bill.
Children smoothed the coloured aluminium caps and used them for crafts or as decorations between bicycle spokes.
A shop that came to you
The milkman soon sold much more than ordinary milk. His cart carried porridge, chocolate milk, yoghurt, cream and different custards. He often brought butter, margarine, cheese and eggs too. Customers paid immediately or had the amount written down.
The milkman followed a regular route and often knew his customers for years. He chatted, knew who was ill and noticed when a regular customer did not answer. For older people and those who rarely went out, his visit could be an important daily moment.
Behind that friendly image lay hard work. Milkmen started early, worked in all weather and continually lifted crates of glass bottles. Cleaning, loading, unloading, taking payment and keeping orders also took considerable time.
