🧑 Milkman

A milkman is a worker who delivers milk to people's homes: in the morning he leaves bottles by the door and collects the empties. He once drove a cart with churns, then an electric vehicle called a milk float. Such delivery has become rare, but milkmen still work in Britain, and customers can still order milk to their doors.

The closest modern job is the driver-salesperson: such a driver not only delivers goods but also sells them and looks for new customers. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), these drivers usually need only a high school education, on-the-job training lasts up to a month, and a driving licence and a clean driving record are required. The work is physically hard, the day often starts very early, and light-truck drivers have one of the highest rates of injuries and illnesses among occupations.

In Britain, milk rounds appeared in the middle or second half of the 19th century; at first they were made by horse-drawn carts, and battery-powered floats became popular from about the 1950s. In the US, according to the Department of Agriculture (USDA), 54% of liquid dairy products were delivered to homes in 1954 but only 19% in 1971: people increasingly bought milk in stores.

For milk, cold is what matters most. Regulation (EC) 852/2004 requires vehicles to keep food at a suitable temperature and allow it to be monitored, and says the cold chain should not be broken, except briefly and without risk to health.

Why it matters to you. If you order milk to your door, take the bottles from the doorstep as soon as you can and put them in the refrigerator right away. Return the empties: according to The Grocer, a single glass bottle is used about 25 times.