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INTERVIEW THE BIG
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By Ged Henderson
SHOWING LOTS OF BOTTLE
Simon Mellin is looking to deliver so much more than a pint of milk to your doorstep. His aim is to build a tech unicorn from his base in east Lancashire.
And the chief executive of Modern Milkman looks to be heading in the right direction with an old-fashioned business model brought right up to date with cutting-edge technology.
Industry watchers are predicting great things for the rapidly growing business. Mention the ‘U’ word and Simon, who was born and bred in Pendle, says: “We’re level-headed and we’ve got a lot of work to do to get there.
“But it would be amazing if we could become a tech unicorn from Lancashire and show that you don’t have to be in Manchester or London, but you can achieve things in areas like this. That, if anything, is the aim.”
As the name suggests, the Colne-based company has taken the traditional milkman’s concept of delivery – putting the pinta on the doorstep and taking away the empty glass bottles for reuse - and brought it into the 21st century.
Sustainability is at the heart of the operation, resetting the throwaway society. All Modern Milkman’s products, which also include a growing range of groceries, are delivered using single-use plastic free, returnable bottles or containers, or recyclable home compostable packaging.
The business works with independent suppliers and farmers to deliver products, including eggs, yogurt and bakery items as well as fruit and vegetables.
It uses intelligent data and analytics to map out milk rounds, assess demand and reduce carbon emissions. Customers sign up to the service using its free app.
Modern Milkman, which began life in 2018, also works closely with a ‘decision intelligence firm’ to combine information, such as shelf-life dates, customer ordering patterns and warehouse data to ensure customers receive deliveries on time with minimum waste in the supply chain.
Having already saved 57 million plastic bottles from landfill, the business announced last October that it had added 200,000 new households to its ever-growing UK milk round.
It is an approach that has caught the eye, singling out the business as a potential unicorn - a privately held company with a value of more than US$1bn. It also led to it scooping the overall judges award and fastest growing company of the year category in last year’s prestigious GP Bullhound Northern Tech Awards.
The business has also attracted strong institutional investment to help it on its journey. The latest funding round saw it raise a total of £50m to support its ongoing scaling and sustainability efforts and its global expansion plans.
Simon, who still lives in Pendle, says: “We started with angel investors and we built it from there. Investors, customers and suppliers, everyone buys in to what we are trying to achieve. It is quite easy to get your head around the issue of plastic waste and it is a really straightforward proposition.”
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