Last year, Jeanine and Chris Doody moved with their five young children from Bedford, New York, to Shrewsbury—in order to be near the ocean. Mission accomplished. Except…
Back in Bedford, in New York’s Westchester County, they had enjoyed old-school, to-the-front-door, delivery of fresh milk. That was not available in their new town.
What to do?
Not being slugs, they Doodys decided to create a business to deliver fresh milk.
In little more time than it takes to lick off a milk mustache, they created Two River Dairy, a business that brings a number of farm-fresh products direct to clients in Central Jersey.
It’s named, by the way, for the Two River section of Monmouth County.
With five children under age 10, the Doodys consume a lot of milk every week, and they wanted their kids to have dairy products free of growth hormones, pesticides and insecticides.
They hoped to find local Jersey milk to stock Two River Dairy. But they couldn’t find a Jersey farm that could provide milk in the retro glass bottles they wanted.
Why the bottles, which, as Jeanine admits, are “expensive”?
Well, “for environmental reasons,” and because glass does not affect the flavor of the milk.
Jeanine manages this cost by charging customers a one-time, refundable $20 fee.
“I track the bottles,” she says, “and as long as you return them, you are never charged. If you decide to discontinue service, once we pick those bottles up, I refund that $20.”
Customers can order milk in plastic containers, and the fee is waived.
Two River charges a $4 delivery fee, but there is no minimum purchase required to qualify for delivery. Recurring orders can be set up online or placed weekly.
Two River Dairy’s milk comes from Battenkill Valley Creamery in Salem, New York.
Skim, 1 percent, 2 percent and whole milk can be ordered in half-gallon bottles for $4.25. Quarts of half-and-half are $5.50.
“Battenkill milk is made from one farm’s cows,” Jeanine says. “They are not collecting milk from all over and clumping it together. They control the whole thing.
“It’s their cows, their milking facility, their bottling facility. They milk the cows, and within eight hours that milk is pasteurized, processed and bottled. What we get is super fresh and super high-quality.”
When she started, Doody herself drove their refrigerated van in the wee hours to deliver to customers’ doorstep coolers in time for breakfast. Now that the business has hundreds of clients, she has a full-time driver. She hopes to expand to other areas of the state in the near future.
Two River Dairy also delivers produce from Dreyer Farms in Cranford; cheeses and yogurts from Lambertville’s Fulper Family Farmstead; burgers, sausages, poultry and pies from Griggstown Farm in Princeton; and cookie dough from Sweet Bee Bakeshop in Fair Haven.
“I consider myself a sourcer,” (as opposed to a sorcerer) says Doody, who works two days a week as a nurse practitioner in Manhattan. “I find really high quality sources of products and I bring them to my customers.”
732-978-4818
Glass is becoming very important for the business as well as for home purposes also, well the best part of glass is, it can be easily washed or clean up