Pioneer Dairy Family Still Delivers

By Tom Wharton, The Salt Lake Tribune

Snow covered the central Salt Lake City street and the traffic was lighter than normal. In the morning darkness, the sight of a Winder Dairy truck making its daily rounds seemed odd.

Though my parents once had fresh milk delivered to their door, seeing the milkman surprised me. I did not realize getting milk delivered to the door was still an option.

I have met Ned Winder, whose family has owned the dairy since 1880, making it one of Utah’s oldest businesses. For years, Ned volunteered as the lead announcer at Utah high school basketball tournaments. He was known for off-the-cuff comments that broke the tension in the midst of exciting games.

Ned, now in his 80s, attends prep games with family members, often sitting in the front row. The last time I saw him, he grabbed me and handed me a cold bottle of Winder apple juice.

Kent Winder, Ned’s son and now executive vice president of the fifth-generation of Winders to run the dairy, has many stories to tell about his father.

There was the time, for example, when Ned delivered milk in Salt Lake City’s Avenues during a rainstorm. He dashed up to a porch and slipped on the wet wooden deck, sliding right through the home’s screen door into the house. The owner, who was reading the paper, calmly looked down at Ned and said, “Next time you can leave the milk on the porch.”

On another day, Ned rounded a corner to put milk in a box, only to be hit in the face by a dishpan of water being tossed out.

Kent remembers his father taking what was then the company’s amber glass bottles of milk to University of Utah basketball coach Jack Gardner, who always kept milk on the sideline to help calm his ulcer. Ned would drive up to the parking attendant, tell him he was Jack Gardner’s milkman, hand the attendant a pint of cream and get waved through.

Gordon Liddle, company president and a Winder on his grandmother’s side, said the dairy was founded by John R. Winder and his wife, Elizabeth. Their well near the original dairy at 2700 S. 300 East in South Salt Lake seemed to have colder water than others, making it possible to preserve excess milk.

The Winders began bottling milk in 1907 and bought their first truck in 1915, only to decide that horse-drawn wagons were more reliable. In 1931, the dairy moved to its present location at 4100 S. 4400 West in West Valley City. Its plant was built in 1958.

The dairy’s 800 cows moved to less urbanized Payson in 1974. The turnaround time from cow to doorstep can be as little as 12 hours or as long as 72. The company uses no growth hormones.

These days, 34 Winder Dairy trucks serve about 20,000 home-delivery customers. They deliver more than 100 products that include root beer float-flavored milk, butter, cheese, cookie dough, fresh-made bread, juices, water softener salt, Gossner’s cheese and laundry detergent.

Most trucks are packed at 11:30 p.m. It is a rare day when the last one does not return to the dairy headquarters by 9:30 a.m.

Liddle said he feels the pressure of keeping the small family operation alive.

“You have to be quick and you have to be right,” he said in the office whose nearby lobby is decorated with cases of old milk bottles and a poster that reads “All I need to know about life I learned from a cow.”

Customers served with fresh milk before they wake up each morning appreciate the Winders taking up that challenge.

Copyright © The Salt Lake Tribune