Milk vending machine comes to dairy farm near Woodstock

Milk vending machine A Woodstock farmer is offering fresh milk in a unique way on site. CTV's Spencer Turcotte has the details.

After nearly 150 years in business, a dairy farm near Woodstock is switching things up and serving milk in a special way thanks to its new milk vending machine.

Golspie Dairy is not a bar, or even your typical barn, but it does have something to offer on tap. When it comes to pouring a pint, milk isn't usually on the menu but at this dairy farm – it is.

"We brought in one of the first milk vending machines in Canada," said Marja DeBoer-Marshall, co-owner of Golspie Dairy.

DeBoer-Marshall and her husband have installed the roughly $40,000 machine from Switzerland.

At Golspie Dairy, it's BYOB, and in this case that means bring your own bottle. But if you don't have one, they have you covered. In their separate milk bottle vending machine, which keeps the sanitized bottles cold, you can buy one for $2.

The milk vending machine accepts coins or credit card. It will cost you $3 for a litre of 4 per cent white milk and $4 for chocolate milk.

It is a first when it comes to dispensing the dairy delight in Oxford County, the dairy capital of Canada.

"It's just so crazy that up until now, all the milk that you buy as fluid milk in the stores has had to leave the county, get processed elsewhere, and then come back," said DeBoer-Marshall.

All of that work is done on-site at their processing plant. From cow to customer, as the milk spills out into people's bottles, there's certainly nobody crying over it.

"I can remember as a kid, the milk being delivered to us in these bottles. But I have to admit, I didn't know what to expect from a vending machine," said one customer, Ralph Flood.

When it comes to how it all works, there isn't a milk man hidden inside the machine. The magic begins within large milk cans connected to dosing pumps that bring either the white or chocolate milk through to the dispensing door.

"It's the milk man for the new age I guess," said DeBoer-Marshall.

Staff also told CTV News about the plans they have for their other vending machine.

"Our milk bottle machine will actually be able to put out wedges of cheese," said DeBoer Marshall. "If it's 7:00 p.m. at night on a Sunday you can come get a wedge of cheese."

So whether it's "milk, please" or "got cheese?" it seems they're milking their machinery and making the most of it.