"Hardly anybody that calls knew that there was still a milkman. Everybody thought it was a thing of the past."

Delivering milk directly to Regina doorsteps has been a way of life for Kevin Ramstead for more than two decades, but COVID-19 has brought the services of the city’s last milkman to more people’s attention.

When he first started in the business 25 years ago, Ramstead said he was one of 17 milkmen delivering for Dairyland in the Queen City.

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As a young twenty-something, Ramstead was interested in running his own business. He stopped a milkman on the street one day, curious what the dairy delivery life was like. That milkman knew another milkman looking to get out of the business.

Shortly after that conversation, Ramstead bought the truck and route from the driver who wanted out, taking over delivery for the Walsh Acres and Glencairn neighbourhoods.

As the years passed, Regina’s 17 milkmen slowly dwindled to one.

“Now I’m the last home delivery guy still in Regina,” Ramstead said in a recent phone interview.

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Photo by BRANDON HARDER / Regina Leader-Post

But his long-standing track record could not buy him immunity to the rapid changes brought by COVID-19. Daycares, schools and local restaurants received the bulk of his deliveries. When they were forced to close, he lost 75 per cent of his business.

The pandemic did bring a silver lining, however — an increase in demand for home delivery services as people searched for ways to avoid grocery stores.

To stay afloat and raise awareness of his services, Ramstead began upping his advertising efforts and a friend created a Facebook page for him. In the three weeks since the Facebook page went up, it has garnered nearly 1,200 followers.

That social media popularity has sparked plenty of interest and even translated into new customers.

“It’s a little bit overwhelming right now because (I’m) getting quite a bit of response,” he said, noting he’s signed up 90 new customers so far. Every day this week after his regular deliveries, he has answered 20 to 30 voicemails from people interested in learning more about what he offers.

“Hardly anybody that calls knew that there was still a milkman. Everybody thought it was a thing of the past.”

It takes a lot of individual homes to make up for the loss of the larger deliveries though. Ramstead said some of the daycares took upward of 20 four-litre jugs of milk every week. The school’s milk programs took hundreds of the individual sized chocolate milk cartons.

“I’m definitely still hurting because of (COVID-19), but this is helping,” he said.

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Photo by BRANDON HARDER / Regina Leader-Post

At the moment, the rapid uptick in customers is making for some long work days. Ramstead said several mornings he has been up at 2 a.m. to make sure everything was ready to go, and every day he has to recreate his route after adding in new customers.

Advertising isn’t cheap either, he noted, and it will take him some time to recoup those costs.

“I’m going to have to work with all these calls probably for like a year to pay for all the advertising that I’m doing, and then hopefully they’ll stay on with me down the road and it’ll pay off in the end,” he said.

While he said some people have wondered why he doesn’t create a website or leverage social media more, Ramstead said he still prefers to operate “old school” by dealing with people in person.

“I like to talk to people in person, because when you just do it on a computer it’s not very personal,” he said.