ETHICAL COOKS are conditioned to disapprove of vending machines. They spit out the wrong foods in inappropriate locations like schools, hospitals and gyms. But recently I spotted a new purpose to vending machines, one that has made me see how they can solve a problem rather than create it.

Last week I saw a machine in the vet’s car park in Blandford Forum. The size of a typical bedroom wardrobe, it dispensed milk from a local farm, Allen Valley, into a reusable glass bottle sold by the same machine: £1 for the bottle, then £1 for every litre of creamy, whole, non-homogenised milk.