The name of one Liverpool dairy business was once a familiar sight on our streets.
Generations ago, the area now known as Merseyside was home to both the historic Liverpool cowkeepers and hundreds of dairy owners, who sold milk to a rapidly expanding city population. As time went on, the modern milkman, as many came to know them, became a familiar sight on our Liverpool streets, with most families having fresh milk delivered daily.
Refrigeration and pasteurization soon became common place, and other factors such as the rise of supermarkets and the Milk Marketing Board coming into existence changed the way dairies and milkmen operate. But many of us will remember family members working in for one local business decades ago and the brand name being part of our every day lives.
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The Hanson family were large dairy owners in Liverpool and Queensferry, delivering daily across Merseyside, Lancashire and North Wales. Trading under the name of J. Hanson and Sons Ltd for decades, it is said to have once been the largest private dairy businesses in Liverpool.
Many will remember the site on Long Lane in Aintree, as well as those in Upper Parliament Street, Edge Lane, in Kirkby and more. The huge old fashioned milk tankers bearing the label Hanson's Dairies were always seen driving around.
On June 12, 1958, a printed ECHO advertisement stated "Our Aintree dairy is one of the most modern in the country and milk is processed and bottled under the most hygienic conditions." Hanson's milk and cream in earlier years came in a glass bottle with a J.H.S. emblem.
In the 1970s, Hanson's Dairies also organised the Billy Bottle campaign, featuring a cartoon character, prompting Merseysiders to return their empty bottles. Some of the savings in the bottle bills were donated to Liverpool Child Welfare Association to send deprived children on holiday.
Do remember Hanson's Dairies? Let us know in the comments section below.
One image, recently rediscovered from our archives Mirrorpix, has been unseen for years. Taken in April 1980, we see supervisor Jim Smith inspecting the first cartons to come off the new line. The business was later acquired by Unigate and later Dairy Crest.
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