How To Keep Milk Cool On Your Doorstep In Summer

Does your dairy supplier deliver milk in the dead of night? In winter, it’s no big deal, but in summer, it can cause milk to spoil quickly. Here’s how to keep milk cool on your doorstep in summer to help reduce food waste.

For quite some time we switched to getting our oat milk delivered in returnable glass bottles by our local dairy supplier. And for the longest time, I loved it. I’d go so far as to say that it was one of the best plastic-free switches we made.

We only stopped because the local company we used had an online system to manage your deliveries, but it never worked. I’d try to skip a delivery if we weren’t around that week, but they’d still deliver it anyway. We would regularly end up with more oat milk than we could feasibly use. I hate food waste, and I’d feel so guilty even though it wasn’t my fault.

Unfortunately, there aren’t any other suppliers near me, so I can’t switch to an alternative. But I did want to share a clever summertime hack I discovered to keep your milk cool for those of you with more reliable suppliers.

Our Mik Problem

I had zero problems with our milk deliveries from autumn through to spring. But in summer, we noticed the milk was going off really quickly, and I couldn’t work out why.

I had entertained the idea that perhaps the milk was going off on our doorstep, as it hadn’t been particularly cool in the mornings. But I thought our milk was delivered at around 5 or 6 am. Surely an hour or two sitting outside wouldn’t have much effect on the milk?

Then one evening, I had been beavering away working on Moral Fibres whilst the rest of my family slept. In the summertime, when my kids are off school, the evening is the only time I really get to work on the site undisturbed. I had a lot of work to do, and I ended up working until 11:40 pm – a time I wouldn’t normally work until.

Whilst I was creeping through the hall to go to bed, trying not to wake anyone, I heard a clanking noise outside my door. I thought someone or something had knocked over our empty milk bottles. That was until I realised it was the dairy. It turns out they deliver our milk before midnight!

That meant our milk was usually sitting outside on our doorstep for more than 7 hours before we got up. This isn’t a problem for most of the year, but in summer it’s not exactly ideal. That’s why my milk wasn’t lasting so long.

That evening, I was able to bring the milk bottles in and pop them straight into the fridge. However, I’m usually in bed way before 11:40 pm, so I started to think about how best to keep milk cool on our doorstep until morning, to stop it from going off. Here’s what I came up with.

How To Keep Milk Cool On Your Doorstep Until Morning

If your milk has been going off on your doorstep in the summer heat, then don’t worry. My best and easiest solution to keep milk bottles cool on your doorstep until morning is to use a simple freezer bag.

Just before you go to bed try popping an ice pack inside a freezer bag (just a standard freezer bag from the supermarket) and leave it on your doorstep. The weight of the ice pack not only prevents the bag from blowing away, but it keeps the milk nice and cool on our doorstep until you wake up. No more off milk, and less food waste.

For another top tip, on the first evening, I left a note on the door for the dairy supplier saying to pop the milk in the bag. They quickly got to know the drill.

If you don’t have a freezer bag and ice pack to hand, then there’s no need to go out and buy anything new. I’ve also heard of people leaving a shallow bucket of cold water outside their front door, for the dairy to pop the milk into. I also reckon that would work pretty well.

Any other tips or techniques you use? Do share in the comments below!