Milking it

Getting up at an unearthly hour isn’t for everyone but it suits Paul Daly just fine. As, indeed, does his new truck, a Volvo FH500, with which he collects and delivers milk around County Meath and Dublin

- Dan Parton

The prospect of getting out of bed at 3 am five days a week would fill most people with dread. But Paul Daly is not most people. The 27-year-old has been getting up at this ungodly hour for three years now to start his working day collecting and delivering milk, and it’s a job he thoroughly enjoys.

He has got used to the early mornings in his role for Gillick Transport, a smaller haulier based in Virginia, County Cavan, which works exclusively on contract for Irish dairy products producer Glanbia and has done for many years. Gillick has three trucks working on milk collection and delivery, including Paul’s.

30 stops a day

“On a typical day I’ll be lifting my first load of milk by 3.30 am. Then I’ll go onto about five other farms before tipping at the creamery for the first time at about 5.30 to 6 am,” he says. After that, the process starts again – Paul calls in at local farms, fills up his tanker with milk before heading back to the creamery.

Over the course of a day, he can make up to 30 stops.

He visits farms on a rota, visiting some one day, others the next, before going back to the first farms again on the third day. This is done on a seven-days-a-week basis, with Paul doing five days and another driver filling in the other two in the same truck.

But the job isn’t just about loading, transporting and unloading milk. Paul also takes samples from the milk he loads at each farm he visits. He then mixes the samples and tests it using a Charm Antibiotic test strip. For the vast majority of the time, the milk is clear of any antibiotics. But occasionally a trace does get through and, in that case, the milk has to be dumped. Paul doesn’t mind doing this testing as it’s a relatively simple procedure, acknowledging that it helps speed the process and ensures milk can be delivered 24 hours a day to the creamery.