Most of Shepparton is asleep when the first of Conti’s Dairy’s six trucks rolls out at 3am, bound for towns across the Goulburn Valley.

Tony Conti has been doing this since 1988.

Nearly four decades on, he and his daughter Cailin Prinzi are still at it, and they reckon the secret has everything to do with their community.

Conti’s Dairy is a Shepparton-based dairy distributor, covering more than 20 Goulburn Valley towns across six-days-a-week.

From Seymour to Tocumwal, Conti’s delivers familiar big-names like Pura, Big M and Bulla to doorsteps the big supermarkets can’t reach.

When Tony took over the small milk run business, his wife Julie had just come home from hospital with their first child.

“She came in and the bassinet went under the desk,” Tony said, laughing.

“You just had to do what you had to do.”

That spirit has carried Conti’s Dairy through nearly four decades of industry upheaval.

They have faced deregulation, corporate takeovers, fuel price spikes, and the slow disappearance of nearly every other independent milk distributor in the Goulburn Valley.

“In Shepparton there were a few, like Ducats, Mooroopna had Clark’s Dairy, three milkies in Benalla, one in Rushworth, one in Euroa,” Tony said.

“We are one of the last ones left now, locally.”

It hasn’t always been easy.

When deregulation hit in the 1990s, big Melbourne distributors moved in and stripped the supermarket accounts.

At one point, Tony and Julie sold their house to keep the business afloat.

“We had lots of ups and downs. At one stage, we even had to take a step back,” Tony said.

They responded by leaning on their community — pubs, clubs, restaurants, and milk bars.

“They all supported us because they knew the story,” Tony said.

“Being local, they got behind us.”

The milk supply chain has cycled through enough brand changes to make your head spin: Midland Milk to Diploma, then Dairy Farmers, then Pura, and now Bega, but the Conti operation has stayed constant.

Today they run six trucks, employ 13 people, and deliver everything from single-litre bottles to cream, cheese, and flavoured milk.

Tony still laughs about the time he was backing up a step at a milk bar with a loaded trolley.

“My feet went from under me and I was pinned underneath it, I couldn’t get up,” he said.

“The shopkeeper came over and goes, ‘Well, I've never seen it delivered that way.’”

Cailin got involved about 14 years ago and has since taken over day-to-day management.

She said the company’s philosophy had never changed.

“Mum used to say ‘You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar,’” she said.

That focus on people radiates through everything at Conti’s.

Every Friday the team shares a takeaway lunch, fish and chips one week, pizza the next, always purchased from one of Conti’s local partners.

There’s a monthly cash award named after Julie, who passed away last year, where anyone can nominate a colleague who went above and beyond.

“Little things go a long way,” Cailin said.

The company also quietly donates near-expiry stock to Foodshare and sponsors six local football clubs, not something they advertise.

“Without this community, we wouldn’t have a business,” Cailin said.

Their longest-serving customer, Charcoal Chicken’s George Zoukis, has been on the books since about 1989.

“He asks me all the time, ‘How do we not get in a blue?’” Tony said.

“But we never have.”

As for the future, Tony is happy to play the elder statesman, while Cailin sees room to grow, carefully.

“We think choose your lane and do it well,” she said.

“We never want to get so big that we can’t solve an issue quickly or make a customer happy quickly. We don’t mind mistakes, but don’t make them twice.”

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Friday, 13th April 2029

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