Family milk round forced to close after 114 years due to supermarket price war

For more than 100 years, their white milk floats have been a familiar sight as they whirred and clinked through Buckinghamshire’s villages.

But Bond Brothers, one of the country’s oldest milk rounds, has been forced to close after being priced out of the game by supermarkets.

The family business was established in 1901, when Fred Bond milked cows by hand and delivered bottles by horse and cart to customers including Winston Churchill.

His family worked hard to ensure the business went from strength to strength and it is with a heavy heart that his grandsons, Andrew, Ashley and Guy Bond, have admitted it is no longer economically viable.

They say the business now makes little profit and they simply cannot afford to continue to deliver to their 350 customers.

Guy Bond, 53, who has been delivering milk since he was six-years-old, said: "The supermarkets have killed our business.

"Dairies, milkmen and village stores have all suffered. In one village they put the bus stop for Tesco outside the village shop.

"I am not angry, but this Saturday I am having to say goodbye to all my loyal customers.”

Fred’s sons, Michael and Patrick Bond, started working for the family business in 1936, completing their deliveries by bicycle in the 1940s before getting milk floats around a decade later.

Patrick introduced his wife Peggy to the family trade when they married in 1951 and she remembers churning the milk and cream by hand, as well as working on the farm and carrying out daily deliveries to homes.

Mrs Bond, 90, said: "It was really hard work, we used to deliver twice a day at the start.

"If anyone had a baby we used to bring the milk after 6pm so that the milk was as fresh as possible. I can't even imagine that level of service from a company today."

In the 1980s, the business was handed over to the couple’s sons who will make their final deliveries this Saturday.

The brothers have delivered milk to hundreds of customers over the years, including Generation Game co-host Isla St Clair.

They run a milk float each and deliver to a total of 350 customers living in seven villages across Buckinghamshire.

Guy, a father-of-one, told how his said his grandfather had delivered milk to Sir Winston Churchill during World War Two.

His round included The Firs in Whitchurch, near Aylesbury, a large country house otherwise known as Ministry of Defence 1, where British weapons were developed. The property was dubbed “Churchill’s Toyshop.”

He said: "My grandfather used to deliver to Winston Churchill. He always had full-fat milk.

"We helped to win the war. How about that."

But back then, budget supermarkets were simply a figment of the imagination.

Today, the price wars between stores such as Aldi and Tesco have seen the Bond Brothers’ customer numbers plummet.

Guy added: "It really is sad for the older generation. The supermarkets sell four pints of milk for £1, but the elderly only want one, the supermarkets don't care about them.

"Once they have the monopoly and there are no milkmen left they will put the prices up.”

He added: “It's all about traceability, when people bought our milk it was from the same county so it tasted better, but when you buy milk from the supermarket you don't know where it's come from.

"Milkmen and postmen provide a social service. For some of our customers we are the only person they see all day.

"We really are part of the community and want people to know that this will carry on.

"Over the years we've found dead people, people who have had a fall, discovered fires and even helped people with heavy lifting.

"Times have changed, now if you approach a younger person who has moved into the area and say do you want your milk delivered they look at you as if you are strange.

"The modern generation just don't want a milkman."

A National Farmers Union spokesman said: "The dairy industry is losing farmers on a daily basis and this just goes to show the great pressures our industry currently faces.

"This constant devaluing of an iconic British product is not sustainable.

"It is vital dairy producers receive a fair price for their produce or we run the risk of losing it."