A FAMILY farm’s milk doorstep delivery operation has gained over a thousand new customers in the last three weeks.

The Roan’s Family Dairy, based at Barnbarroch, in Dumfries and Galloway, had plans afoot to develop the home delivery side of the business, but Aylett Roan told The Scottish Farmer that their families were still unprepared for the surge in demand which has erupted over the past month.

“Over the last five years we have grown Roan’s Dairy at a steady controlled pace, but we could have never anticipated that we would gain over a thousand new customers in only three weeks,” said Ms Roan.

Even before Boris Johnson announced the lockdown on Monday, March 23, the Roan’s phones have been busy with people wanting to sign up for doorstep deliveries.

She continued: “Since the PM’s announcement, our lines were so jammed from orders that we had to open up additional phone lines to accommodate demand. I am now no longer doing any farm work, which at a time where we have just started lambing and the beef cows are calving, puts extra strain on the farm, especially as the farm is also feeling the pressure of Covid 19.”

The Roans have also expanded their deliveries to cover Stranraer, Moffat and the Gretna area, as well as everything in between.

“Gaining over a thousand new customers in such a short period is a logistics nightmare,” said Ms Roan. “We have had to expand our fleet of vans, to reach new areas, and now have around eight vans going out during the night six days a week.”

As well as delivering fresh milk door to door, the Roans are picking up the slack on other sought-after products such as potatoes and toilet roll – alongside cream, eggs, yoghurts and fresh orange juice.

“People have been very patient with us, as we are a small business and are having to juggle a lot to adjust to the times, which includes putting more practices in place to ensure our team is safe as without them we could not operate,” she explained.

The family firm has also gone international, with people phoning from all over the world to sign up their relatives, who remain in the area, for its service, which tries to go the extra mile to deliver to those rural locations some supermarkets won’t reach: “We have a number of customers who are elderly and classed as vulnerable who we call up weekly to make sure they are okay and if they need us to bring them anything – this does take a huge amount of our time but is so worthwhile and the banter with them is quality.”

The Roans hope that once the current crisis calms down that people won’t automatically default back to supermarkets: “Our new motto is – ‘A Milkman is for life, not just for coronavirus’,” said Ms Roan. “We don’t want thanks for doing the job we always do, but we want people to realise that when the chain breaks with supermarkets, we are here to support them. Stay local, shop local.”

Stuart Roan pointed out that only a proportion of the milk produced by their business goes towards doorstep deliveries and stressed that he is deeply concerned like many other dairy businesses about the milk price and uncertainty of the market moving forwad.

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