READER Trev Willis posted one simple question on our We grew up in Worcester Facebook page, and triggered a whole host of memories for many people.

Trev asked: Does anyone remember Bennetts milk in bags?

Because believe it or not, it’s almost 50 years since the dairy product first arrived in Worcester.

Bennetts Dairies, of Lower Wick, started delivering fresh milk in sachets to all its milk customers in 1971 and continued supplying them until the business was sold to Avonmore Dairies in 1992.

Josie Taylor, Nigel Davidson and Ron Bishop, Lia Tasker, Lal Howells, Cat Vale, Vicki Argenbright and Stephanie Price were just some of those who had memories stirred, Clair Andrews recalling the blue jug that the sachets were placed in. Helen Briscoe said her grandma had the bags and the blue jug, prompting Janet Susan Barnes to add that sometimes bag split.

Stephen Savage said: “The jug had a hole in the bottom, to make sure you put the bag in the jug, not just the milk!”

Lin Holland said “the milk was lovely too”, although primary schoolmates Sam Minton and Vicci Hickson-Downes might not agree.

Sam said: “We had a school trip to Bennetts and had warm milk from the bag. I remember the milk and I was very travel sick there and back.”

Vicci added: “It was my ninth birthday when we all went. We had to go back to class and write letters on bottle-shaped paper about how much of a great day we had.

“I wasn’t impressed. Cold and muddy!”

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We featured the milk in a bag in 2008 when the news came out that Waitrose and Sainsbury’s had caught on to the idea and introduced introduced it to selected branches with a view to eventually rolling it out to all stores.

Cathy Anstey wrote at the time: “John Bennett, who ran the Worcester-based farm and milk delivery business, said: ‘It is a French invention. A friend of mine in Herefordshire was doing it and we started in 1971.

“‘We were doing sachets up to 1992, when we sold the business.’

“Unlike Waitrose and Sainsbury’s, which charge customers for a container to hold the milk bag, the Bennetts pint sachets were popped into a blue jug, supplied free by the dairy.

“Customers just snipped off the corner and poured. The open corner could then be pulled into a slot in the spout of the jug to prevent drips and keep the bag sealed.

“Mr Bennett said they were supplying 6,500 gallons of milk a day in bags to customers in Worcester and the surrounding areas. The innovation was claimed to have considerable environmental advantages as glass had to be heated to 800C to make milk bottles and they had to heat water to 60C to wash the returned milk bottles before they could be reused.

“‘We saved 90 gallons of heavy oil for the boiler and saved 12 million gallons of water in a year because we did not need to wash bottles,’ Mr Bennett said.

“’We also saved on four tonnes of aluminium foil and from an environmental point of view it was highly satisfactory. And because the milk floats did not have to come back with the empties, they were able to take out 20 per cent more milk.

“’People could also freeze the milk in bags. It was completely satisfactory as far as the environment was concerned. It saved labour and it saved a lot of materials’.

“Bennetts Dairies supplied all of its 15,000 customers with milk in sachets for about three years.

“‘Gradually we had to reintroduce the bottles because we were not picking up new trade and by the time we sold the business to Avonmore Diaries we were doing about 20 per cent of sales in sachets,’ said Mr Bennett.

“The milk bag is a well used form of packaging in Canada and is also used in the USA and Australia.

“But does Mr Bennett think the supermarket milk bag will fare better than the milk sachet delivered to Worcester homes all those years ago? After all, a pint delivered to the door is different from taking it home from the supermarket among the rest of the shopping crammed into carrier bags.

“Mr Bennett said: ‘I think the packaging is a bit too fragile. If the surface is kept clean and smooth that is fine but the slightest bit of grit or a rough or sharp edge would go through it.

“‘Customers will only have to have their shopping soaked with milk once and that will be it.’”

Do you remember Bennetts milk a bag? Or maybe something else that makes Worcester so special. Why not find our We grew up in Worcester page on Facebook and join the conversation.

Or you can email Community content editor Barry Kinghorn at barry.kinghorn@newsquest.co.uk