Northland dairy company Bella Vacca Jerseys plans to bring the service to the city early next year.
However, a surge in demand for glass bottles meant the roll-out would have to be staggered, Bella Vacca owner Gav Hogarth said.
“There’s a continuing shortage of glass bottles in New Zealand so we have to do it gradually,” he said.
“We’ll start with the places where we already have shops stocking our product.”
Hogarth and his partner, Jody Hansen, are sharemilkers on a small farm west of Kawakawa, Northland, and launched Bella Vacca raw milk three years ago.
Full cream milk from their herd of 180 jersey cattle is pasteurised on the farm and trucked to shops from Houhora in the north to Grey Lynn, Auckland.
Hogarth and Hansen opted for glass bottles, which could be sterilised and reused, to reduce the company’s environmental impact.
One glass bottle could make 50 return trips from the farm to a customer at a much lower cost to the environment than manufacturing 50 plastic bottles, Hansen said.
With growing demand for their jersey cow milk, which has more butterfat and less water and lactose than milk from other breeds, the pair have decided to expand the business.
“We’ve got a bigger pasteuriser coming and hopefully that will be up and running over Christmas,” Hogarth said.
“We’re aiming to start home deliveries early next year. You have to just bite the bullet, you can’t do it half-pie.”
Bella Vacca already trucks about 1000 litres of milk to Auckland cafes and shops three times a week.
If just 1 per cent of the city’s population bought a litre a week, deliveries to homes would be about 2000 litres a day, Hogarth said.
“I’d say there would be more than that with home delivery. The demand for glass is there and Auckland has the numbers.”
While Bella Vacca handles deliveries to retailers, home deliveries would be set up as standalone businesses, creating employment opportunities across the city.
Hogarth estimated the milk would cost about $4 a litre delivered to the door.
