Category:United Dairies

United Dairies Milk Tank Wagon, Hornby Series 1930 [image info]

United Dairies was formed in 1917 by the merger of three dairy companies that needed to be able to pool resources in order to guarantee a solid supply chain for their highly perishable products during the disruptions and manpower shortages of World War One, along with the Dairy Supply Company, which made milk churns and other dairy industry hardware.

United Dairies' new business model was very successful, and the company expanded by acquiring more dairy businesses, introduced pasteurisation, and started building their own milk tankers (on bases supplied by the railway companies).

Dual tanks

The typical United Dairies tanks were divided into two compartments, each with their own filler cap and tap. This dual-tank configuration meant that the tanks were more stable and easier to control on the railway (with less uncontrolled "sloshing" of the milk in the tanks), and also meant that two types of milk from a single small dairy could be loaded onto a single wagon.

The George Barham legacy

Once UD had solid rail distribution, the company began to look more like Express Dairies, which had been founded to transport milk by express train, and which had been started by George Barham ... the inventor of the milk churn and founder of the Dairy Supply Company, which had become part of United Dairies.

Barham was a pioneer of mass-market milk supply, developing both storage and transport containers, and also using the rail network to bring fresh milk into London daily with his Express County Milk Supply Company, to replace the output of London's rather sorry and mangy urban cows. Barham had bequeathed his milk churn and milk haulage businesses to different people, but once United Dairies also started using the rail network for distribution, both of Barham's legacy businesses were apparent competitors.

Express Dairies and United Dairies seem to have tried to keep out of each others way by using different preferred railway companies for their rail distribution.

United Dairies merged with dried milk specialists Cow & Gate in 1959, to form Unigate.

The Dairy Supply Company's old headquarters is still visible near the British Museum, and a recent restoration included the nice touch of making its chandelier-style lighting glasswork out of milkbottles.

External links

• The Dairy Supply Company - London premises (baldwinhamey.wordpress.com)
• The Dairy Supply Company (ianvisits.co.uk)
• British Railways Milk Train (wikipedia.org)