Vegan Milkmen Business To Expand And Deliver Organic Plant-Based Milk Around The UK - In An Electric Van

There's a vegan milk factory in Devon that for the last two years has been producing and delivering freshly made dairy-free milk straight to the customers' door. 

ReRooted Organic, a company run by former Manchester United player Richard Eckersley and his business partner Dan Dawson, is revolutionising the world of milk.

ReRooted is an eco-friendly, environmentally conscious, sustainable and zero-waste vegan business. The company uses only reusable glass bottles, cardboard labels and they recycle the byproducts to make as little impact as possible. 

Started from delivering almond and coconut milk in their electric van around their headquarters in Totnes, the company has grown with demand. 

Recently Rerooted established a partnership with Riverford - a UK-wide organic vegetable box delivery company to sell its vegan milk across the country.

ReRooted's founders created the business out of frustration at not being able to find superb quality and zero-waste plant-based milk on the market.

Richard, one of the founders, said: "Our idea came from frustration really. Our zero waste shop customers were asking us for milk - we contacted loads of producers to try and find one not using Tetra Pak, but we couldn't find any."

When Richard ended his career as a professional footballer, he moved to Totnes with his family, and in 2017 he founded the UK's first zero-waste shop, Earth.Food.Love. 

He added: "No one is really doing what we're doing, and we've been figuring it out from day one.

"We are passionate about other manufacturers - we didn't want a third party manufacturer, we wanted to do everything in house so there's a lot of traceability - we know where every ingredient comes from and how its made

"We think the milks are the best in the world. The reason is because we are doing it ourselves and the attention to detail is there for us."

The manufacturing process is all hand-made, and every stage of it involves humans: they weigh the ingredients, they roast the almonds and twist the lids on the bottles. 

The company buys organic ingredients from farmers cooperatives. Almonds are sourced from Spain and Italy, and coconut comes from the Philippines or Sri-Lanka.

At the moment, they are preparing for the Riverford expansion, which means their milk will soon reach homes in 64% of the country. 

They expect their 400 litres of milk per week will increase to thousands, and they will have wash thousands of glass bottles to refill. 

Dan said: "In truth, at first we were a bit gung-ho. A lot of motion behind the movement was because of that frustration around the zero waste aspect and also the quality aspect. "We've worked really hard with our milks to match the flavour profile of cow's milk.

"One of the major aspects for us is to reduce the need for dairy milk. Our mission statement is to end the need for dairy farms. The whole purpose is to give a really viable delicious milk [which is] arguably a more ethical option." 

At the moment, ReRooted offers organic almond and coconut milk. Soon, they will extend their range into oat milk, cashew, hemp, rice, hazelnut and chocolate hazelnut.