About Us
Paul, Ecofresh Dairy Owner
Hello, I’m Paul!
After working in and around the dairy industry for most of my life from the age of 8, I always had a vision of setting up my own dairy business. I went from life after leaving school working in various different roles in many different industries but was a milkman for a short while and worked in Sales roles within dairy companies mainly selling milk wholesale to restaurants, shops and the catering industry.
Within these roles I also dealt with milk rounds reorganisations, marketing and getting people in the right places for different roles in the businesses. I still dreamed of one day owning my own dairy business but during this time doorstep delivery from the milkman was in decline and many dairy businesses were closing, selling up or merging with other dairies with milk rounds being taken out massively downsizing in favour of cheap supermarket milk.
Like lots of things in life which come back into fashion the great David Attenborough brought to the attention of consumers around the world the plight of one use plastic and the damage this was doing across the globe and to our marine life. Councils around the UK and probably around the world had made people believe one use plastic bottles and various other items of waste were being recycled however the truth came out.
Various programs like Blue Planet and war on plastic highlighted that much of the UK's waste was being shipped around the world not necessary being recycled and in many cases ending up causing more pollution.
The time seemed to be upon me to see whether there would be a need to bring the milkman back to an area where I had grown up helping all the local milkmen over thirty years ago. I put the idea out there and there seemed to be some people who would support a local milk delivery service.
There were a couple of larger or national dairy businesses around but none of them were offering what I wanted to do. Like many people I had a vision in my mind what great customer service looked like and I had seen some other dairies offering nothing like this. I wanted to offer as many products as possible in returnable glass bottles and as many local great tasting products as possible, things you just couldn't find in the supermarket.
I wanted to sell products that I loved myself and that I knew my customers would love too. At the time I was working in another job I loved as a local school caretaker, I was running little clubs for the kids to get them taking ownership of their school and interested in wildlife within the school but eventually the bosses piled on the workload to a point where there were just not enough hours in the day. I took a pay cut and decided to do an 8 hour day rather than 12 as I took the leap to see what I could do starting a milk round.
But what would I call my business?
I pondered over various names based around the area I wanted to deliver or around my name but none of these had a real ring to them, I then thought what is it I really want to be renowned for? I wanted to be Eco friendly delivering Fresh products - Like those light bulb moments Eco Fresh Dairy was born!
A dairy I started buying milk from allowed me to deliver to some of their customers and look after them while I was building my own customer base. I started deliveries across Thurrock and my own customers began to come on board. I was collecting milk from the dairy outside of Thurrock but really wanted to be working from my own fridge with my own supply coming in. I had started to source my own products the first being a fresh milk shake in returnable pint bottles and I soon purchased my own branded milk bottles.
Since our birth in 2018 we grew slowly but surely. Adding lots of local products and being at the forefront of fresh.
Sadly after Covid finished and we were hit with the energy crisis price hikes we had a number of customers cutting costs which included our services sadly. Our lovely little unit and the rent was going through the roof and things started to spiral out of control cost wise. We had also been hit with lots of issues with staffing and we just couldn’t seem to get the people we needed to do the rounds.
I took the sad decision to pass the business onto a local dairy in Rayleigh and they continued the deliveries where they could make things work.
Since selling the business I have missed our customers and doing the deliveries. For some time I’ve had thoughts of setting things back up with the initial feelings of offering a wide range of juices in returnable glass bottles plus the original milk shakes we did as well.
We will also be looking to offer some of the wonderful items we offered before including a fantastic real dairy butter and even fresh milk if it’s requested.
The idea will be to keep things very simple, one round on one day to start with with no expensive computer system, manual rounds books like the old days but a website to order and pay up front for customers who prefer that approach.
I’m looking forward to building the business back up with some fantastic products and being the eyes and ears of the community again.
I’d like to thank you in advance for your support to our lovely little local business.
Paul.