SC - Milk delivery

[Heitman]

At 02:15 PM 2/22/99 EST, you wrote:
>In regard to the decline of local dairies, the regional nature of the dairy
>business made them easy targets for the larger, more financially aggressive
>ones like Dean, Suiza and Southern Foods.  In fact the merger and
acquisitions
>in dairy parallel the M&A activity in supermarkets, who were also very
>regional in nature.
>
>Ethelwulf


Once upon a time in the long distant past, My family ran a local dairy with
delivery. This was pre 1965. Since 1985, I have been a food service
professional.

One of the things that helped destroy the milk delivery industry was the
sanitation regulations. Remember that dairy products do have an ability to
spoil, and to do so rather quickly in the heat.

Food handling regulations require foodstuffs to be maintained at a
temperature below 40 degrees until actually in the possession of the final
consumer. In some areas, this is interpreted as actually being touched by
the consumer, not just on his property. Dairy delivery was usually done
very early in the morning, before the day's heat set in.  But the product
could sit for up to two hours in an environment greater than the required
40 degrees before being brought inside. Welcome to food poisoning.

Consumers became better educated in the late sixties, and standard
equipment passed the old real icebox stage. But the delivery industry could
not develope a cost effective system to overcome this basic flaw in its
system. The insurance liability issues became prohibitive.

The one delivery service that continues in St. Louis does so at a set
appointment for delivery price. If you are not home to physically recieve
the product, you don't get it delivered. You still get charged for the
delivery tho, just not the product.

Franz
of the old Burns Dairy, Randolf County, Ill.

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