A queue of eager customers formed at Llaeth Beynon’s first milk vending site a good hour ahead of its advertised opening time.

Demand for the farm fresh milk from the Beynon-Thomas family’s new venture surpassed their every expectation, to the point where a group of cows had to be hurriedly milked early to prevent an interruption in supply to the machines.

“We could see that we were going to run out if we waited until our usual milking time because the milk needed to be pasteurised,” recalls third generation farmer Ifan Beynon-Thomas, who produces milk from a herd of 250 pedigree Holsteins on the outskirts of Pontardulais, at Goitre Farm, Hendy.

A new business' dream

It’s a situation that every new business might dream of - daily sales of 50-80 litres were budgeted for but on day one actual sales were 380 litres and that volume kept growing.

Buoyed by that, the business now operates five vending sites in south-west Wales, at Hendy, Ammanford and Swansea with three of those supplying ice cream produced from the Goitre herd’s milk; there is also a coffee machine outlet too, all within two years.

“It has been a steep climb with a lot of arguments on the way,” laughs Ifan’s father, Gareth.

Like the day when 8,000 reusable glass bottles arrived in the farmyard, before the first vending site opened.

“My response to Ifan was ‘Where the hell are you going to sell all of those?’,” Gareth admits.

But Ifan’s faith in the venture was justified as sales have been very strong. “Ifan came out on top,” Gareth concedes.

The brand ethos

The ethos behind the brand is to sell local milk to local people in glass bottles that can be reused.

While it may sound an easy way to make money it hasn’t been without financial risk and indeed hard work.

The family’s work ethic is hard to match, even in an industry that functions on little sleep.

“I average around four hours of sleep a night, five if I’m lucky,” says Gareth. His wife, Monica, needs little more and their children are no shirkers either.

Establishment

The farming business was established by Gareth’s father, Cliff. Goitre was a privately-owned farm that he rented. He seized the opportunity to buy the 150-acre farm when it was offered for sale, and farmed it with 50 cows, heifer followers and 50 sheep.

Today, together with rented land, the family farms 700 acres that support 250 milking cows, 300 followers and 300 breeding ewes.

The all-year-round calving herd produces an annual milk yield average of 10,800 litres at 4% butterfat and 3.3% protein.

The biggest immediate challenge is the length of time it takes to milk the herd – four hours in the 12/24 full automated parlour.

Improving infrastructure

A new parlour, together with new cubicle housing, is a priority in the next four years, says Gareth.

“We should have upgraded the infrastructure but instead added a bit here and there because at the time when we should have made that investment we were putting four children through university.”

Gareth and Monica’s daughters, Sara and Alaw, are schoolteachers, both heads of department, Rhys and their daughter-in-law, Sarah-Jane, are directors of Prostock Vets and Ifan is in charge of the milk vending business having also played rugby at a semi-professional level. And coming up through the ranks are the first grandchildren, Monty and Elis.

Education

The value of education is one instilled in Gareth by his mother. She had a degree in botany at a time when it was highly unusual for a woman to go to university.

“She tried to discourage me from farming but having completed my O and A levels and a degree in agriculture at Bangor University I came home to farm in 1982,” he says.

“There haven’t been many days since then that I have regretted that.”

He built up the business with Monica, ‘the girl from next door’. Only a road separated the two farms but because they were educated at different schools it was the 1980s before they first met, at YFC.

“We have worked together side by side, day in day out, in all weathers to get to where we are, I couldn’t have done it without her,” says Gareth.

They graded the dairy herd up to pedigree and two years ago were named as Master Breeders by the Holstein Society.

A recent investment in the dairy herd has been heat detection collars which has allowed the family to do most of their AI in-house.

Farm stock

Heifers and the best cows get two or three cycles of sexed semen and Belgian Blue genetics are also used; surplus heifers are sold as breeding stock, directly from the farm or at Carmarthen livestock market.

Lamb is produced from a flock of Berrichon ewes, with lambing getting underway from 1 January.

Ewes and lambs are housed for six weeks before being turned out to grass supplemented with big bale silage.

“We are an early grass growing farm, but the sheep are in competition with the cows,” says Gareth.

60 ewe lambs are retained as replacements and 60 of the best ram lambs sold as yearlings at local and NSA sales.

Prompted by the pandemic

The diversification into direct milk sales was prompted by the pandemic, specifically by the failure of their milk buyer to collect their milk during the initial days of the first lockdown.

It gave pause for thought when several days’ milk supply had to be emptied into the slurry lagoon.

“We sat around the table to look at what else we could do with the milk and worked out what sales we needed as a payback on the investment in vending machines and were confident we could do it,” says Gareth.

“The payback on this scale of investment would be relatively short term when you consider that farming has a once in a generation payback.”

The family owned farmland on the outskirts of Hendy which meant the new venture could qualify to operate as farmgate sales without the need for a retail licence.

Ifan designed the housing for the machines – a converted shipping container – and that theme has been rolled out across the other sites that have since been opened.

The business has grown to the point where it employs two full time staff and one part timer.

Social media's role

Social media has played a significant role in that growth – at the last count Llaeth Beynon had more than 24,000 followers on Instagram and Facebook.

It is fortunate that Gareth can function on little sleep because as well as an all-consuming farming operation he also serves as a Carmarthenshire County Councillor and is a governor at two schools.

His route into local authority politics came almost by accident. He was a community councillor in Hendy and decided to take on the sitting councillor at the 2012 election.

He recalls being at Carmarthen mart, selling weaned calves, when Monica rang to advise him he had been elected.

“I won by 11 votes,” he says. He has since stood for a second and a third term, increasing the number of votes over his nearest competitor each time, first by 59 votes and then by 100.

How does he fit it all in? "18-hour days and support from Monica, Ifan and Rhys, it’s teamwork."

“Sometimes the council work complements farming though because I can get off the farm to do something different and return with a fresh mind and fresh ideas.”