Fresh Food, the Old Way

Dairy's New Customers Like Knowing Exactly Where Their Milk Comes From

The iceman's days became numbered with the advent of the refrigerator at the dawn of the last century. The coal man stopped delivering once people switched to oil and natural gas to heat their homes. And the milkman, for the most part, went the way of the buggy whip when big grocery stores came into vogue in the 1940s and '50s.

But last week, the milkman returned to Alexandria. And this time, in addition to the milk, he brought cage-free eggs, free-range chicken and beef, and other all-natural products . All organic.

On Sept. 24, an immaculate white truck with big black splotches on it left South Mountain Creamery in Frederick County, Md., and began making the rounds of homes in Del Ray, Rosemont and Beverly Hills, announcing the milkman's arrival with the clink of old-fashioned glass milk bottles being deposited on doorsteps.

For some, it was a nostalgic return.

Larry Altenberg, president of the Del Ray Citizens Association, was reminded of the milkman who delivered fresh milk to his grandparents' New York farm, carefully placing it in an old insulated metal box.

"They got milk delivery every week up until I was 10 years old," Altenberg recalled. "This is sort of a throwback to have that fresh-from-the-farm delivery to your house. But Del Ray is very big on organic foods and local, sustainable farming. We have our own farmers market and a couple farm co-ops, so it only makes sense to have milk service."

(People who join farm cooperatives, he explained, buy a share in a local farm for a season. The farmers deliver grocery bags full of whatever was harvested that week -- lettuce in the spring, squash in the fall -- to a couple of houses in the neighborhood for co-op participants to pick up.)

Altenberg heard about South Mountain's delivery service through an e-mail discussion group. He signed up and placed his order online. When he opened the cooler that he had left on his porch -- he doesn't have a metal box yet -- it was brimming with a half-gallon bottle of whole milk, a half-gallon of 1 percent milk, yogurt, butter, cheese, goat cheese and pre-made meals of stuffed pork and chicken and mushrooms that a local chef whips up using meat and produce from the South Mountain farm.

"Both my wife and I work," he said. "So for those nights when we're both too tired to cook, those things will come in handy. And having literally fresh-from-the-farm meals, you really can't beat that."

Abby Brusco, who grew up on the family-owned South Mountain farm and runs its billing operation, said that when she and her mother began delivering milk to 12 homes out of the back of their Ford Explorer in 2001, they never imagined they'd one day be sending milk trucks as far north as the Pennsylvania border and as far south as Alexandria. Their first delivery order came from a town 20 minutes away, and they worried that that was too far. Now, nine milkmen deliver fresh milk to as many as 2,000 homes on 32 routes. They don't advertise; all their business comes via word of mouth.

Brusco said they got their start by selling their products at a farmers market in Vienna. People there began asking for home delivery service. So Brusco's husband, Tony, came up with a formula: However many miles it would take to drive from the farm in Middletown to the intended neighborhood, they needed a commitment of that many customers to make delivery worthwhile. "It was a completely random calculation," Tony Brusco said. "But that's how we've grown. We never intended to go as far as we've gone. And we charge the same delivery fees whether you're a mile away from the creamery or 70 miles away. So the further we go, the routes have to be denser and denser."

Early last month, an Alexandria resident heard from a friend in Vienna about the delivery route there and asked about getting one in Alexandria. The Bruscos had a driver available on Mondays, and their cows produced plenty of milk. So the couple applied their formula: It is roughly 72 miles, one way, from their farm to Alexandria. They would need 72 customers. Alexandria resident Cristina Rugo posted a note with several neighborhood e-mail groups. In two days, more than enough households had signed up. On the day delivery started, South Mountain's milkman made 86 stops. Now, milkman Ronnie Toms drives to Alexandria every Monday, delivering items such as jam and honey, milk and butter, cookie dough, lamb, beef, "handmade artisan cheese" and gourmet pet treats.