Milk Brought To The Porch: Relic Of The '50S Is Still There

PORTSMOUTH, Va. - Derek Christensen parks his yellow truck, grabs two half-gallon glass bottles of fresh, chilled milk and takes off like a decathlete.

He leaps a 4-foot chain-link fence and sprints up to a dimly lit front porch. There, he lifts two empty bottles out of a cooler and - clink - deposits the full ones.

Christensen is a milkman. By the time he has completed his rounds, at 12:30 a.m. or so, he will have made deliveries to about 70 homes for Bergey's Dairy Farm of Chesapeake.

The dairy is one of only two in Virginia, and perhaps a couple dozen nationwide, to deliver milk, butter, eggs and the like to your front door.

"It's boring at times, but not too bad once you get the hang of it," Christensen, a lanky 19-year-old, says between sips of Gatorade during the five hours it takes to complete his rounds.

Back in the 1930s, '40s and even '50s, it was common for local dairies to make deliveries. But John Miller, executive secretary and treasurer of the Virginia State Dairymen's Association in Harrisonburg, said that only two of the state's 1,009 dairies still make home deliveries: Bergey's and Yoder Dairies in nearby Virginia Beach.

They're a luxury for most people, Miller said. A half-gallon of delivered milk costs as much as $2.48, compared with about $1.69 in area groceries.

"You can't deliver milk and pay a person, pay for the truck, pay for the gas, unless you get that higher price," Miller said.

Mary Whitley Haycox, 71, of Virginia Beach, has had Yoder milk delivered to her home since the early 1950s. She says the price is worth it.

"It's quality of life. People go out and buy a $10 bottle of wine," she said. "This is delivered to your door, heavens, and you know it's fresh. I have it on cereal for breakfast, a glass of milk for lunch if I'm home and a glass of milk at dinner." Even the skim milk she orders "tastes like it has cream in it," Haycox said.

Bergey's president, Leonard Bergey, estimated the number of companies in the U.S. doing home delivery at close to 30. Either way, their sales represent a small fraction of the $15 billion to $18 billion of milk sold annually in the United States.

Bergey's Dairy has been doing business since the early 1930s, when Leonard's grandfather, Titus, began delivering milk.

The dairy has remained in the family, and today Leonard and his wife, Elsa, run it. Bergey's milks the cows, processes the milk and delivers it to about 1,500 homes.

Yoder Dairies has delivered milk since 1929. Ken and Elsie Miller bought Yoder in 1996. At the time, the dairy was a cooperative with 18 members. Most of the original members had died and passed their shares to their children, who were considering closing up shop.

Ken Miller had delivered for Yoder in the 1960s and, according to his daughter and company vice president, Maria Olah, "didn't want to see that thing of the past go out the door."

Yoder buys milk from two farms and processes it at its plant. Most is for delivery, but walk-in customers can buy milk, baked goods and sausage at a small store.

Yoder has about 5,000 delivery customers, down from a high of more than 10,000 in the late 1950s and early '60s, Olah said.

"It's gone downhill, but there's still an interest," she said. "The biggest thing is the convenience.

"I work here, and I still get mine delivered."