David Turpin and Blair Gordon have 58 years of combined service working for Purity Dairy, almost as long as the company has been delivering milk.
They sat with their mouths open, shocked, after the company announced at a meeting April 11 it would be ending its home delivery service in a month.
Turpin has delivered milk to 200 homes a day for 31 years. As of May 11, he will be out of a job. He said employees had no warning about the announcement.
I was shocked. They told us during a meeting on Wednesday. We had no idea.
Gordon is unsure what will become of his job. He worked for the Montague location for 25 years, and has worked in Charlottetown for the past 2 1/2 years packaging milk. He said he hopes he will remain at Purity.
Purity Dairy has delivered milk for 60 years, to about 2,000 homes a day in Queens and Kings counties.
There are 25 people employed at Purity Dairy, seven are home-delivery drivers. They will either take a voluntary retirement package or a different job with the company.
Turpin said he wished the cancellation had happened next year. At 59, he and four other employees would have been able to retire soon.
Instead he has opted to take a voluntary retirement allowance, but it will not be available to him until the end of the year. He said he will have to find work elsewhere until then.
The 200 residents on his route are upset about the cancellation, but Turpin said they understand why it has occurred. Over 30 years the number of residents on his route has not decreased, but the amount they order has significantly.
When he began, people would order up to 15 litres. Now its only one or two a day, said Turpin.
A lot of people are seniors now, they dont need all that milk anymore. They dont have growing children who drink that much milk.
Gas prices have been increasing steadily, but milk prices have remained constant, something which has taken a toll on the company, said Turpin.
Company president Tom Cullen said the decision to cancel the service was due to a decline in home-delivery service and increased costs.
It has been a continuing trend, 10 years ago it represented one-third of the business, now 80 per cent of the business is from milk sold in stores.
People have been ordering less milk because of an increase of dual-income households, leaving no one at home to receive milk in the morning, said Cullen.
He said in order for the company to remain strong, they have decided to use their resources to buy new larger vehicles for business deliveries.
