The Dream Machine
Miracles happen when you least expect it…This beautiful piece of machinery will help increase our production capacity once we figure out logistics!
Ever since I was little-albeit I am only 22- I have been on a journey to find the greatest chocolate milk. By happenstance, the 300 ml of God’s nectar caught my eye when I visited Harris Farm markets a week ago. Stumbling across your chocolate milk has not only dumbfounded me in my quest to find the world’s greatest chocolate milk but has also destroyed my diet. I am on my 12th bottle in 7 days. So why I am writing to you? First of all I would like to say thank you, secondly could you please make it in one litre bottles? Please never stop making this crack milk!
Regards, Isaac
It is the little things like these messages I get that make this journey into processing worthwhile. To get this factory up to an efficient level of scale where it becomes self-sustaining and not just a hobby that is slowly sending me broke, we need an investment of $250-$500k. Luckily for us, the amount in our Bethune Lane Dairy account floats from not being able to pay our bills and $5000, so we can cover it easily, if we beg, borrow or steal (shh) anything we can to make a production line for next to nothing.
As luck would have it-or if you believe in miracles- an old-fashioned American Cherry Burrell milk bottle filler fell off the back of a truck near my farm this week. I am constantly amazed at how generous people can be in giving a helping hand to the people at the bottom of the ladder- you could not buy this machine or an equivalent today for under $100K.
It has been installed in the workshop at present as it has not been used for quite some time. The next steps will be to mark out the walls of the factory on the floor in the workshop to work out how we can use our existing space to make a functional production line complete with conveyers, bottle labeller, date coding machine, and of course the bottle filler!
Currently we are bottling four or five two-litre bottles per minute. Once we fire up the new machine we could quadruple that amount to a low of 20 bottles per minute with the potential of up to 60 bottles per minute (making an embarrassment out of our current rate though you have to start somewhere).
It should also reduce wastage that happens with hand filling- it is hard to avoid spillage and all the bottles are washed after filling which leads to a soggy cardboard box when packaging. The limitation I can see is that I think it will fill the glass chocolate milk bottles but because the lids are a steel twist cap, modifications will be needed or a separate capper required. Luckily, parts are available, it’s American made, which used to mean great build quality and it weighs over a tonne. The most likely outcome is that we will fluff around for a couple of months getting it operational and ready to move in. It will need to go in a safety cage or a trip wire as when running, there is lots of moving parts and potential pinch points. But stage one of building a production line for next to nothing is complete-bottle filler acquired.
So Isaac, in reply to your question, I suspect we probably won’t be making one-litre bottles in the next few weeks or months, but we are working on it- just as we are working on destroying the diets of many more unsuspecting Australians. My suggestion is to dance a jig to keep the weight off-it’s good exercise and crack fun!