Back to the future for dairy marketing

10 June 2026 7 minute read
Three people standing in a field with a cow

Dairy farmers Rob, Thomas and Sharon, creators of The Milk Cart (credit Sg Photography)

Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, milk producers have returned to selling the white stuff direct within their own communities. Isobel Bretherton meets the farmers running two diverse vending operations.

The Milk Cart was launched in November 2023 by Rob Squire and his partner Sharon Claydon, of Servis Farm, Little Torrington.

Their farm lies just outside the north Devon market town of Great Torrington, between Bideford and Barnstaple.

Its solar-powered mobile milk vending trailer immediately proved popular and almost overnight the couple’s diversification quickly became their core enterprise.

Rob milks 80 Dairy Shorthorn cross cows, breeding all his own replacements, putting them to a Dairy Shorthorn bull, and there can be 200 cattle on the farm at any one time.

“Rob’s grandfather, Joe, used to take milk up to town in a cart, and that’s what we are now doing with The Milk Cart. It’s so positive doing this for ourselves.” 


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