WITH Iceland announcing yesterday morning (Tuesday 16th January) that it will be selling its own brand goods in plastic free packaging, one Raglan man is already one step ahead of the supermarket chain and has been overwhelmed by enquiries from customers after he announced he was still delivering the milk in traditional reusable glass bottles.

James Durose of the Raglan Dairy and his two part-time milkmen deliver to the Raglan, Goytre, Usk, Trellech, The Narth, Llanishen and Penallt areas but has had enquiries from further afield including Mamhilad and Newport!

All his dairy products are sourced from within 30 miles of Raglan, and he supplies restaurants, schools, nurseries and residential homes as well as his bread-and-butter trade of households.

He has three milk rounds at the moment and the next few months will be looking to deliver to the Monmouth town area.

The glass bottles are returned to the processor, washed and used again, and some can be used more than 20 times.

He said: “A lot of people won’t have anything else and I am seeing younger people making enquiries about milk in glass bottles!” He thinks this could be down to recent television coverage from the BBC’s ‘Blue Planet’ programmes highlighting the world-wide pollution of our oceans with plastic.

In 2014, the death of glass bottles was headline news with the announcement by Dairy Crest that it was closing two of its plants with the loss of 260 jobs, as fewer customers opted for bottled milk.

The dairy giant ended production at its glass bottling plant in Hanworth, west London in 2014, and later closed its cream potting facility in Somerset.

With 65 per cent of consumers buying milk from supermarkets and only seven per cent having a traditional doorstep delivery, there is still a long way to go.

But every day, James is just one of the UK’s 5,000 milkmen and women who deliver to around 2.5 million homes.

He is accredited by the food safety specialists STS which shows his commitment to clean and safe working practices.