This milk production business is an emotional rollercoaster. One week you win an award, the next week you must recall off milk. One week you’re dancing a jig because you get a trial in Coles Supermarkets, but then you’re dancing on your own because you can’t get the stores to put in an order. I’ve been to the Bendigo stores and there is a spot on the shelf for Bethune Lane Dairy chocolate milk with a price tag-but no stock.
The Swan Hill store is going great, mostly thanks to the amazing manager Chris, who is absolutely trying his best to help a local product, business and family. I think we are selling about 70 to 80 bottles of our chocolate milk each week in the Swan Hill store which is really good. In comparison, our typical IGA might sell 30-50 a week. The trial goes for six months in Swan Hill and two Bendigo stores- and if a success we may be rolled out across Victoria.
If we get to that point, and then depending on any further success, a national rollout is not totally out of the question. With approximately 850 Coles stores across Australia this notion is very exciting!
I’ve always been an optimistic dreamer, but if you could sell 40 each week across just half of those stores that equates to 20,000 bottles of chocolate milk to produce each week.
To achieve this, we would need to dramatically step up from cute novelty to serious business. The pathways to achieve this are limited to major supermarket chains, distributors and independent grocers.
I think this week will mark the fourth week since our Coles trial began and I have been struggling to extract orders out of the Bendigo stores. My only contact in Coles has taken a new job. I’ve tried ringing the stores (try 10 times) and the phone rings out. You can’t have the manager’s number as that is a breach of privacy. I’ve been into each store twice. Though it’s a hard nut to crack, I think with time and gentle pressure we will succeed.
What I learnt from my first experience with a supermarket chain is they are big, unwieldy beasts which initially take some manoeuvring, but once you are established in the system, the process becomes simple.
We have a NSW chain with 26 stores and initially it was chaotic, and I don’t think we were paid for the first three months but they are now our biggest customer-and we are paid weekly, on the dot! Patience is a key virtue. Luckily for me, Sally has lots.
We had a batch of milk that went bad quite early, which is very embarrassing and at times, hard to identify why.
For example, we did a batch on a Monday that was perfect, another on a Tuesday afternoon and again on the Wednesday that was also perfect. The batch we did on the Tuesday went off. A nice farmer called me to let me know and I went to check the samples in the cool room, and they were no good. We pulled the remaining milk from stores, although one refused to allow us as the milk was great and when I went in to taste it, sure enough it was perfect. Test results for the batch indicated that the milk was no good, yet this lot was great. How can some of the exact same batch be bad, some good and the test results suggesting all were bad?
Our sincere apologies to anyone who may have gotten a bottle of dodgy milk- we work hard to ensure only the best quality milk leaves our factory and it’s a hard pill to swallow to hear that our customers may not have received what they paid for.
