The cows file in from the field to be milked, hooves thudding onto the ramp, dust hanging in the air behind them.
But there’s no yard, no concrete, no long walk back to a parlour. Instead, they step straight into a mobile milking unit – a steel-framed trailer set up right in the pasture. At Open Air Dairy on the South Dorset Downs, with a salty wind sweeping in from the coast, this is the system.
‘We take the parlour to the cows,’ says co-founder Tom Foot. ‘The cows stay in the field – eating the food and spreading the dung where they stand. This model cuts out a lot of the capital works that a normal dairy would have.’
The system began out of necessity rather than ideology. Tom and his business partner Neil Grigg met at University of Plymouth. They started out on a short-term tenancy, with limited capital and no guarantee of staying put, so investing in buildings made little sense. They realised that a mobile parlour, by contrast, could be moved – or taken away entirely. But such a thing didn’t currently exist.
‘Putting concrete down and buildings up with no provision for compensation at the end of the tenancy term makes no sense,’ Tom says. ‘Instead, you invest in machinery that you can drive off the farm.
‘A housed system – the traditional milking parlour – is about £10,000 a cow place. A grazing system might be £1,500. We started this at about £250 a cow place.’
That cost difference has since opened up interest from others. What began as a solution for one tenancy has since become a business in its own right, with Open Air Dairy now building mobile parlours for other farms.
‘People have seen what we’re doing, liked it, and asked us to build it,’ he says – but he is also quick to stress that it is not a universal answer. ‘It’s horses for courses. It works on the right land – dry land, chalk downland. But where it’s right, it is a way for young people to get into farming without huge capital.’
The immovation may attract attention, but the day-to-day challenge is making a living from milk.
‘This year is about survival,’ Tom says. Milk prices remain tight, costs are high, and the weather has added another layer of pressure, with the current summer having visible effects.
‘A cow’s perfect temperature is about five degrees,’ he says. ‘Once you get much above that, you lose production. We’re in the middle of a drought, so food’s getting expensive, and the cows are producing less milk than budgeted because of the heat.’
In response, the focus has been on what can be controlled.
‘We can’t control the milk price, but we can control our costs,’ he says.
That has led to a shift in approach, particularly around soil and fertiliser.
‘We’ve reduced fertiliser use by three quarters,’ he says. ‘We’re looking more at biology rather than chemistry – feeding the soil, building organic matter. We’re still growing about the same amount of grass now, but with only 25 per cent of the fertiliser.’
Alongside that, the business is looking to add value wherever possible, including diversifying into producing cheese under its own brand rather than relying solely on the farmgate milk price.
‘You have to,’ says Tom. ‘You can’t just sit there and take whatever the market gives you.’
Even so, Tom remains positive about the future of farming, and says there is still a sense of opportunity both for established farmers and those trying to break into the industry: ‘When there’s blood on the streets, there’s opportunity. It’s pretty bad at the moment, but Jeremy Clarkson has put farming in the media, which can only be a good thing. There are more young people coming into it too. If you’ve got a passion for it, go for it – if you’re passionate, you’ll be good at it. I’m always positive, or I wouldn’t be doing it myself.’
Visitors to this year’s Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show will be able to see the Open Air Dairy in action, as it is returning to give milking demonstrations. For Tom, the appeal of the show is straightforward.
‘It feels like a proper agricultural show,’ he says. ‘Very genuine, very much about farming first.’ And his favourite part of the show? ‘The food tents!’
You can see Tom and his parlour in action at the Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show, 19th and 20th August 2026, where the Open Air Dairy will be running milking demos across the two days. Tickets here – gillinghamandshaftesburyshow.co.uk
