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Comment by disillusioned | Hacker News Reader

Our local dairy (https://www.danzeisendairy.com/) just started this and my wife jumped on it as quickly as possible. They've already been selling milk in glass bottles since they started selling through grocery stores here about three years ago, with deposits, but now since pandemic, they've expanded to include home delivery routes, and it's pretty great.

We can get eggs and milk and bottled cold brew and other goodies delivered on a bi-weekly basis. Since we're in Phoenix, they just have us leave out a cooler out front with ice packs in it the night before (since their delivery window is 4a-8:30a). Our old house had a milk door, but sadly our new (1921, but new to us) house does not.

Still pretty nice way to support the local operation!

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How much is it? I know milk sales are way down in general but maybe on the high end there's some growth.

I assume that in the days of the milkman, it was working class prices, but I wasn't around back then so I don't know.

It's expensive.

Each delivery is $9.99, and then the milk is $3.49/half gallon.

Around here (NC), at the local grocer, the store brand "regular" mile is $2.39/GALLON, and even the fancy local creamery sells milk for $5/gal.

I wonder what kind of economies of scale there are. A lower price can surely be charged if everyone in several nearby streets is getting their milk delivered by the same company.

There do still exist places in the U.K. with milk deliveries and it seems to work pretty well. People generally leave out empty bottles in a basket with some dial set to request how much they want.

The idea appeals to me. It intuitively feels less wasteful (but plastic is very low energy to produce compared to glass and it might not actually be that bad to put plastic bottles straight into landfill), and I’m not sensitive to the price or particulars of the milk (except that it is milk and not some kind of white-coloured water). Maybe it would be too expensive still. Or maybe people would care too much about getting certain brands of milk.

> A lower price can surely be charged if everyone in several nearby streets is getting their milk delivered by the same company.

And we can optimize it even more if the bottles can be delivered to a storage location that will store the milk for the people in the nearby streets. Also, to make it easier for the milk producers, maybe someone can be at the location and pay the delivery person once for everyone. Then when people come to pick up their milk from the central storage, they can pay based on how much they pick up. We are now very close to the concept of a neighborhood grocery store.

> We are now very close to the concept of a neighborhood grocery store.

Which already exist in most places that have more than a few thousand people in the UK.

At scale, I imagine you can subsidize the price by offering cheaper milk alternatives (non dairies), along with other fresh beverages.

I do wonder if with modern processing glass is actually worse. All that extra weight and volume being shipped around.

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