Bottling up Secrets

The new bottling machine in action at the Milk Enhancement Centre

Can you keep a secret?

Because I can’t.

And we have some really important news to tell, although I probably shouldn’t just yet. It’s simply too early, but it’s always better out than in.

I have been working on making an ice coffee drink which suits our brand and story and pairs well with our chocolate milk.

I’ve have had multiple goes, given up, started again, thrown in the towel, got up off the canvas and so on and so on for the past two years. I’d love to say I landed the knock out blow as it were, but the code was actually cracked by Hamish and Sally.

So please keep a look out for Bethune Lane Milk’s Cream and Coffee. No, you won’t see it next week, but you may well come across it in a few months. We still have some tinkering to do, but essentially we have it by the short and curlies and I will be seeking taste testers as we get closer.

For the past two weeks in the milk enhancement centre we have finally been putting our bottling machine into action. It’s been a long time coming.

We are working through teething issues, so if you get a bottle that’s not quite full, blame me. For about 15 minutes today we had the bottling machine singing like a canary (albeit a canary with digestive issues). We were filling a two-litre bottle every 5.5 seconds which equates to about 650 bottles per hour.

That was with the machine at 25 per cent capacity. Unfortunately, the automatic date coder proved to not be very automatic at all, much milk was spilt and we couldn’t finish a couple of orders. Even though it all went pear shaped, that’s cricket and I’m still declaring it a success.

I should stop there, but I have another secret which should stay up my sleeve and again, it’s way too early to share, but I am having fun these days so what the heck.

I think we have basically agreed on terms to some new (new to us but actually pre-loved) equipment which may make us more labour competitive. Not only do we need to be able to bottle milk faster, but we need to be able to pasteurise and homogenise faster.

It should increase capacity to 2500 litres per hour and it will also allow us to do a light milk, a cream and maybe butter in future.

George says to me the other day, “Dad what happened to you? You used to have fun- and you used to be fun.”

Goodness, talk about a dagger through the heart. So while George is only 11 (12 tomorrow-happy birthday George) what he doesn’t understand is, this is my fun and I love it.

I was so close to doing my fizz today and at the same time exhilarated, something we have been working on for ages is about to work out. I went to both my bank manager and accountant to talk about the next phase of growth of Bethune Lane Dairy, expecting them both to put an end to this small charade, but they did not. Instead, they were both encouraging and are helping me pull it together.

It makes a big difference to know friends have my back-even if I’m not fun anymore.