Giving the Great British milkman a new lease of life – delivering farm fresh food to your doorstep
One of the most exciting brand consulting gigs I’ve worked on was for the dairy company Müller, shortly after they’d acquired a big chunk of Dairy Crest’s operations, including an odd little business named milk&more.
Milk&more is the largest employer of UK milkmen, and up-keeper of Britain’s long standing tradition of delivering glass milk bottles directly to the doorstep. Under its previous owner the business was in a state of managed, 10% year-on-year decline. Distribution hubs were slowing being sold off, retiring milkmen were not replaced, and an elderly customer base was beginning to dwindle.
Having crunched the numbers, Müller approached The Value Engineers, and asked us to come back with some thoughts on how we might go about rejuvenating this quirky little operation.
We kicked off with the usual blend of desk research and category analysis – quickly identifying the market forces at play, namely the e-commerce behemoth Amazon, and their plans to move into home delivery with Amazon Fresh.
Whilst milk&more’s future as a ‘corner shop on wheels’ under threat, our hypotheses was that there was room in the market for a more boutique brand, owning the ‘before breakfast’ slot, and forming partnerships with local farms and smaller, more independent suppliers.
We then developed a series of brand territories, covering themes such as health and wellness, convenience, British traditions, sustainability, and indulgence. Testing these with consumers confirmed there was a strong appetite (pun intended) for a next day, before breakfast delivery option, that could be dialled up (e.g. a last minute Mother’s Day spread) or dialled down (4 pints of milk, some biscuits, and a newspaper).
Workshopping our findings with the Müller team we refined the product offering from several thousand SKUs, down to the 100 or so most profitable, all built around a clear, simple brand proposition of “farm fresh foods, delivered before breakfast“.
Fast forward to today, and milk&more has not only established itself as a more premium player, building its online community and harnessing the power of user-generated content… they’ve secure a new lifeline for the Great British tradition of the milkman, benefitting British farmers, communities, and independent, artisan suppliers in the process.
Long list of services:
This project was delivered during my time as a Brand Strategy & Innovation consultant with the inherently clever and intensely creative The Value Engineers.
- Desk research / trends analysis
- Category analysis
- Brand territories
- Co-creation / focus groups
- Market research
- Brand proposition – development & testing
- SKU reduction
- Go-to-market strategy
- Communication strategy
- Brand identity