‘Milkman’ satisfies neighbors’ appetites for nostalgia
MORGANTOWN, Pa. (AP) – In the small hours of the morning, when a quiet still hangs over the neighborhood, the milkman returns.
Daryl Mast clutches a plastic crate of glass milk bottles, a loaf of bread, a hunk of cheddar cheese, and a dozen eggs.
Cautious on the icy driveway, Mast makes his way down to a front stoop, his steps illuminated by a tiny flashlight attached to the brim of his cap.
It’s past 4 on a Friday morning. Mast moves quickly, and quietly, through this new residential development.
He’s an echo of times past.
For generations, the arrival of the milkman was the harbinger of a new day.
As predictable as the dawn, the milkman, the whine of his white delivery truck, wire-rimmed crate and glass milk bottles, was part of the morning routine in communities across America.
Gone are the days when local dairies had a cadre of deliverymen haul fresh milk, butter, cream and other dairy products to every home on the block. But Mast is bringing his business to the transformed countryside around Morgantown, resurrecting a type of business long considered lost.
And, in his own way, Mast is trying to return to those times by connecting customers with fresh, locally made foods.
Mast grew up on a dairy farm on the Lancaster County side of Morgantown. He saw the transformation of countryside to new housing developments.
But, Mast, 36, also saw an opportunity.
“People here have good memories of the milk delivery,” he said. “It’s something that brings back memories.”
Now, his early Friday mornings are spent piloting his Doorstep Dairy truck through the countryside, stopping by homes in Elverson, Morgantown and Geigertown.
At each stop, he’ll leave a bottle of milk at the doorstep.
Mast, who hauls animals for local farms full time, decided he would start a milk delivery business, following in the footsteps of grandfather Wayne G. Martin, who owned a Churchtown grocery store that made home deliveries.
In June, with a reconditioned milk truck, Mast started Doorstep Dairy from his Terre Hill home, delivering to a tri-county area around Morgantown. He started a website and sent out postcards to the gaggle of developments that dot the countryside. Soon he had enough customers to start weekly delivery.
Finding local products was not a problem.
Milk, bread, and eggs come from Lancaster County. September Farms provides Chester County aged cheeses. And Tom and Donna Schalata of the Polish Farmers in Brecknock Township provide him with hand-rolled pierogies for folks who want Polish treats delivered to their door.
“It seems like the public is a lot more interested to know where their food is coming from, and what it is they are getting,” he said. “We saw this as a way to fill a niche.”
Home dairy delivery largely fell out of fashion because of consolidations in the grocery industry starting in the 1960s, said Dr. James Ogden, a professor of marketing at Kutztown University.
Also, milk delivery was associated with independent dairies that bottled milk and cream and churned butter, Ogden said. But the industry went through consolidation, and the doorstep service nearly fell off the radar, he said.
Yet there is a growing desire for greater convenience and home delivery, Ogden said.
And more consumers are making a push for locally produced foods, which can allow delivery services to carve out a niche, he said.
“The industry is enjoying a resurgence,” he said. “I would love it if there was a milkman in my area, and I would pay a premium price.”
Susan McCaughey was one of the first customers to sign up for the Doorstep Dairy service, responding to a postcard.
Having grown up in suburban Westchester County, N.Y., McCaughey could remember the milkman coming to the family home in the early 1970s.
“I just remember that milk in glass bottles,” said McCaughey, who lives in a housing development outside Morgantown. “You can’t beat it.”
Lured by the prospect of having fresh milk delivered to her door, McCaughey tried the service for a week and decided to keep it.
“It’s fresh, and it is coming from a farm down the road,” she said. “It is a total kickback to old times.”
At the start of a long winter morning, Mast goes through the final preparations. A lone light burns inside his home in Terre Hill. Out front, the delivery truck idles in the frigid weather.
Mast starts at Yoder’s Country Market in New Holland, loading up crates of milk. Then he’s off to Sunnyside Pastries, where the Amish owner is making bread and pastries by lantern light. After a few stops, Mast refills at September Farms outside Honey Brook before heading out on the road.
Through his full-time job, Mast has come to know the bakers and cheese makers who produce food locally. Mast’s idea was to connect these small businesses with nearby customers.
“You used to have the local dairy, the local butcher, then they all consolidated,” Mast said. “Our society is so busy that this is becoming something that people appreciate.”
Mast’s truck shakes and rattles over the back roads. He has them mostly to himself.
The homes on his delivery route are darkened and buttoned up tight against the cold.
“Quite a few of my customers I have never met in person,” he said.
But come morning, they will know Mast was there.
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Information from: Reading Eagle, http://www.readingeagle.com/
The Associated Press
02/12/11 00:02