Business booms for family dairy firm after surge in demand

Malcolm Kay,one of the owners of family-run grocery and milk delivery service, said it had taken on 1,000 new customers in five days.

Mr Kay said: “This is the busiest we’ve been for years and we’ve been going since 1954.

“We deliver to the doorsteps of 7,000 houses and in a five-day period recently, we took on 1,000 new customers.

“They’ve been on our website, texting us and phoning us and we’ve literally had people contacting us left, right and centre.

“We’re just trying to help people and this isn’t about profit.”

And the madness has seen staff at the farm working day and night to ensure the customers that need deliveries get them.

The farm delivers a range quality dairy products and fresh groceries on a daily basis free to people’s doorsteps throughout Wigan.

He said: “Staff have been working from as early as 1.30am to 3.30pm in the afternoon right now.

“We’ve had customers contacting us mainly to deliver the basics such as milk, eggs and potatoes.

“We’ve had housing homes for older people ringing up and we’ve been going down a couple of times a week to deliver food to the residents there.

“This is all about helping the elderly and vulnerable and those others who are having to self-isolate and stay at home right now.

Recent weeks have seen customers panic-buying in supermarkets, something which Mr Kay said has helped the dairy farm.

He said: “The panic buying in recent weeks which has seen supermarkets run out of stock has helped us as people are turning to us for essentials.

“But we’ve seen a move away from that and people are asking for deliveries as they’re all staying at home and following government advice.”

And Mr Kay said that it is business as usual for the dairy farm, which has put into place extra hygiene measures for its staff.

He said: “It’s very busy for us but it’s one we’ll get through as will the rest of people and businesses in this country during these hard times.”

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