Raw Milk Vending Machine at Hordle Manor Farm

The Cobb family of Hordle Manor Farm have dropped us a line to tell us of their new venture into supplying raw milk via a vending machine...

"Hordle Manor Farm is a family run farm which has been in the Cobb family for over 100 years. Matthew is currently the 5th generation of Cobb farmers. 

The family farm dairy and arable, growing enough crops to feed and bed their herd of cows, with a little extra to sell to the feed company. The Cobb family consists of Matthew, 47 years, Jack 18 years, who has just been offered and accepted a position of PCSO with the Metropolitan Police, Tom 16 years, who has an apprenticeship at RAD Engineering where he is learning

click image to enlarge

all aspects of welding and fabricating, Harry 15 years, who is currently studying at Priestlands school and helps out on the farm at every given opportunity, Emily 10 years who is being home educated with the help of many wonderful local groups, and mum ,Sarah (46), who describes herself as a full time dogs body to all of the above, who enjoys riding and caring for her horse too. They all live in the farmhouse with our 4 rescued Lurchers and many cats. 

Hordle Manor Farm is one of the very few remaining small farms, which runs a closed herd of around 100 Holstein Friesian milking cows. They also grow and produce grass silage, hay, maize, barley and straw, which mostly is used for feed an bedding for our cows. Any other feed which is needed is all sourced locally or comes from the South West. 

Most of the farm's milk goes to Medina Dairy and is then processed and sold in Sainsbury’s supermarkets. 

However, the diary has been using some of the milk before it is collected and treated for themselves. In this state it is called raw milk as it has not been heat treated, pasteurised or homogenised. As it hasn’t been altered in anyway, it is the most amazing creamy milk. Contrary to some beliefs, it is not fattening though. At only around 4% fat. This is a ‘good/friendly’ fat and is needed to help our bodies in many ways. It also contains all the ‘friendly’ bacteria which heat treating kills off. 

click image to enlarge

Sarah and Matthew have now decided it was time they shared our secret with the public and have set up a raw milk vending machine. 

Customers can come with their own bottles or containers, or buy bottles from us at £2 per bottle, which is glass with a screw top, so is reusable. The vending machine will supply however much or little milk you would like and is very easy to use. A litre of milk costs £1.40 but if you don’t want a whole litre, the machine will give you the amount of milk you pay for. 

The milk vending machine has clear instructions and only takes coins, but does give change. they have sourced as many of  the products for their venture as they could locally, including all the signs and flyers from New Forest Printing in New Milton and bottle labels from Gilly Print in Lymington. The logo was designed by Jamie Kedwards - the son of Sarah's childhood friend! 

Last Saturday the farm opened their doors and have been overwhelmed by the response from the public so far. On our first day they sold in excess of 60 litres of raw milk. Many customers came from lots of different walks of life and they had lots of positive feedback. 

Matthew and Harry showed some groups of people around and explained how the family have an open approach to their farming methods and are happy to answer any questions or to discuss any issues anyone has. They explained we want to be upfront and open as to where milk comes from, as sadly the whole farm to supermarkets process has become a little disjointed. 

Emily spent all day explaining to customers how to use the vending machine and met lots of lovely new faces." 

If you would like to find out more about raw milk, you can find the farm as below:

New Forest Raw Milk - Sarah’s Dairy 

Hordle Manor Farm, Cliff Road, Milford-on-Sea, SO41 0NW

Directions: From Milford on Sea take the Cliff Road (B3058) towards New Milton. Continue along Cliff Road past the car parks and Scholars Retreat. The farm is on the left, Just after the old churchyard and before Downton Lane, Shorefield Park.

Oh, the dairy also has a Facebook page too, you can visit by clicking here.