Through Milk, I documented a Bermuda dairy farm, West Over Farm and a processing facility, Dunkley’s Dairy. Both are family businesses, and have been passed on for multiple generations.The images from this series reveal the way in which milk is collected and rigorously processed. Dunkley’s Dairy collects their milk from five farms in Bermuda, including West Over Farm, which holds over 200 mature cows. Every 12 hours the dairy farmers milk the cows. The cows obediently file in and out of the barn, eight at a time, taking turns to feed the plastic tubes. The milk is then stored in chilled holding tanks. When a dairy cow is no longer fertile and unable to produce milk, she is sent to the slaughterhouse, and the meat is sold in a small shop near the entrance of the farm.
At 2.00 am in the morning, a Dunkley’s Dairy tanker collects fresh milk from all five farms and transports it back to the dairy. At the processing center, the milk is stored, pasteurized, homogenized, tested for quality, and placed in cartons. Orders are delivered to grocery stores, restaurants, and hotels on a daily basis starting at 7.am. Some drivers are given the keys to stores so that they can deliver their products before they open. Dairy farmers and dairy processors have an incredibly challenging job, rising early and working long and taxing hours to produce the only source of localmilk for island inhabitants (population 62,000). Dunkley’s Dairy operates five days a week, and involves a workforce of over 75 people.
