New Zealand startup Happy Cow Milk is poised to roll out its milk dispensers in grocery retailers in Hamilton and Auckland after raising $279,000 in its third equity crowdfunding campaign late last year.
Customers will pay for bottles and milk at the retailer’s checkout, it said in its latest newsletter.
It declined to offer further details but said it is also aiming to install dispensers in select cafes and has six dispensers available for cafes.
Happy Cow Milk’s goal is to create “caring, kinder, fairer dairy” and reward farmers for ethical and sustainable dairy practices.
Founder Glen Herud described the company as a “milk factory in a box”.
The system connects farmers to local customers and replaces costly milk processing infrastructure. Farmers put the milk into a set of tanks, which are essentially a processing hub that pasteurises the milk.
From there, they deliver the tanks to community milk retailers, which could be cafes, schools or people doing home delivery. Importantly, the system is modular and can be built up as demand grows.
This week, the company also said it wants to try a new dispenser for the workplace it designed over Christmas. It is looking for two or three corporate workplaces in Auckland that would like to “rid themselves of plastic bottles”.
Towards the end of February, it plans to have dispensers with a payment system attached. This would allow unattended dispensing.
“The plan is to install these dispensers into malls and shopping centres. It’s at these unattended dispensers that we will be able to sell our milk at the lowest price,” it said.
The company is also looking to launch its home delivery app and is planning to first launch home delivery in one suburb of Auckland.
According to Happy Cow Milk, the average household consumer uses 0.6 litres of milk a day.
Switching to a reusable bottle system like Happy Cow’s would save 218 one-litre plastic bottles going to landfills each year.
