A 23-year-old Donegal woman has had a huge reaction to her vending machine for bottled pasteurised fresh milk that she recently introduced on the family farm.
Shannon Porter has just opened The Milk Bar at Lusticle, Carrigans, which allows visitors to the farm to fill up a bottle of milk and bring it home, or enjoy a flavoured milkshake on-site.
The Porters currently farm 800ac, with 275ac of this being owned land.
“We milk 400 dairy cows and keep all youngstock for replacements and beef. We also keep around 200 ewes,” said Shannon.
“My family farm is run by my dad, Jack Porter, and my mum, Judith Porter. Dad bought the farm back in 1990 and started to milk in 1997.”
Her great grandparents Jack and Henrietta Porter, ran Milburn Dairies, Castlefinn, in the 1950s and 1960s.
Shannon always helped out on the farm growing up. “I would have always worked on the farm doing tasks such as milking, calf rearing and moving cattle.”
The Milk Bar vending machine
While studying for her final year of an agriculture degree at Harper Adams in the UK, she developed her plans for The Milk Bar vending machine.
“My family and I have talked about doing a milk vending machine for years but never did anything about it and I suppose I have been away from home at university. In February, with lockdown, I was studying at home online.
“I was talking to a good friend and I told him that I would love to develop a milk vending machine. He said: ‘What are you waiting for? You’re 23-years-old, go and do it’.
“So I came down home to mum and dad and asked: ‘Are we going to do a milk vending machine or not?’ – Mum was like: ‘If you want to do it, we will do it’.
“Since that day, I went full steam ahead and got planning, and now we are here today. We had to construct a log cabin for the customers and a new concrete build for the pasteuriser room,” said Shannon.
“There was a serious amount of paperwork needed for the department, and a lot of red tape. I took my parents around other vending machines in Northern Ireland and Ireland to get them the feel for the idea. The rest of our milk goes to Aurivo.”
Sustainable glass bottles
The glass bottles have a real nostalgia appeal for many people she said.
“The reason we wanted the glass bottles is to become more sustainable and [they’re] better for the environment than using plastic,” said Shannon.
“Also, the milk tastes so much better in the glass bottles as sometimes you can taste the plastic in the plastic containers. It also keeps better in the glass bottle.”
Her time at Harper Adams proved very beneficial in establishing the venture, she said.
“I headed over to Harper Adams University for open days and I fell in love with the place and knew that was where I wanted to go. Harper Adams has a great reputation for students getting jobs straight out of college and I loved the option of having a year out for placement.
“For my placement year I worked with Premier Nutrition and Lakeland Dairies in Northern Ireland as a TMS (Transition Management Scoring) assessor. I would have been accessing dry and fresh cows during the transition period,” said Shannon.
“During my time at Harper I milked cows for farmers before my classes or after and, on my weekends. It worked great on the weekends as a lot of my friends would have gone home for the weekends and us Irish ones couldn’t go home as easily each weekend.
“In Summer 2019, I went to New Zealand for three months before I headed back to uni. I went to work on 900 dairy farm for their calving season. It was an amazing experience,” the Donegal woman said.
“I’m now back involved in the farm and I manage the work rota for the weekend shifts and also have a fulltime job.
“I have two younger brothers. Luke (21) loves cows; he graduated from Greenmount last year. Justin (17) has headed off to college this year. He works with the sheep. He has pedigree Dutch Spotted and has done really well this year with them.”
Shannon is working for Smyths Daleside in Ballindrait, Co. Donegal, as a sales rep covering the Co. Tyrone area.
“I started at the end of May and I am so grateful they took me on without my qualifications as I still had my exams to do online in June. So the pressure was on for studying for my exams, trying to get everything organised to start my business up and work for Smyths,” she added.
Response to the vending machine
The response to The Milk Bar has far exceeded Shannon’s expectations.
“It’s crazy. I’m actually so overwhelmed and I feel like I have to keep pinching myself to believe it is real. I have people coming from all over, including holiday makers from New York and London.
“Customers have come from over two hours’ drive away. It is fantastic to see as we were worried as we are off the beaten track. We had offers to move it closer into a town but I wanted people to see where their milk is coming from.
“The reviews are great. One said:’I always drank semi-skimmed and now trying this milk, I will never be going back to shop milk’. Another commented: ‘Frothing the milk for my cappuccino was so much easier and it was so much silkier and was whiter in colour’.
“Another responded: ‘Love going back to the glass bottles, like the old days’. Yet another was: ‘My kid is drinking it and I am happy to come back all the time if it means he will drink this milk’. A New York customer said: ‘Loved tasting the milk directly from grass fed cows’.”
The future
Shannon is now considering her next move as she goes through various offers. “When I ordered my pasteuriser I added in the extra parts if I wanted to start producing semi-skimmed milk so that is a plan down the line,” she said.
“Also, maybe I might make homemade ice-cream and yogurt.
“I would love to be able to teach young children about where their food comes from, for example school trips. There is so much potential to expand but it’s where to start. But I love the idea of making it a one stop shop that I can offer all essentials, basically a farm shop.”