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STATEN ISLAND, NY – In the middle of the night on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Jeff Milling tours Staten Island.
A milkman for 25 years now, he transports glass containers of farm-fresh milk and other dairy products to more than 300 homes in the borough.
“I start at 2 a.m. and finish at 8 a.m. in Staten Island,” Milling said, adding, “The day the milk is made, my customers get it.”
Milling’s “moo” products come from King Dairy, a second-generation farm in Saratoga, NY. Milk made in small batches comes from what it calls a “single source.”
“They raise their own calves, grow their own crops,” he said. “The milk is hormone-free, GMO-free, antibiotic-free. And everything comes in glass bottles.
Its customers keep a milk box or a cooler on the porch and the mill puts the product in the containers.
The milkman, Jeff Milling, makes a delivery of fresh milk.
A former Annadale resident who now lives in New Jersey, Milling left the advertising world in the mid-’90s to launch Udderly Delicious in his home. It’s still a one-man operation, but is now based in the Garden State. Over the years, it has branched out into eggs, butter, cottage cheese, sour cream, gourmet meats and seafood, and the entire line of Cabot cheeses.
During his quarter century in the business, he inherited a second generation of customers. And delivering dairy products in the middle of the night has also earned him “crazy” stories.
“I used to deliver in one of those old bread trucks,” Milling said. (Square things can be tricky to negotiate, especially on the hilly, windy roads of Staten Island.)
“So I’m in one of them – they’re hard to maneuver – and I back up and hear a thud,” he said. He got out of the vehicle, checked the back and saw nothing. He drove a few more blocks and heard another “boom, boom, boom.”
“The back of my truck snagged on this guy’s basketball hoop!” said Milling.
“Another time this guy on Halloween knew what time I was coming,” the milkman said. The customer dressed up as a scarecrow, blended in with the lawn decorations, and then, around 3 a.m., when Milling made the delivery – boo!
“Bottles went everywhere,” Milling said with a laugh. “He never did that again.”
“I love what I do,” he said.
Milling takes orders over the phone at 732-360-9991.
The expiry date on fresh pasteurized dairy product is approximately 14 days after bottling. It is bottled the same day it is delivered.
