Dairy celebrates 59 years in family
When Hampshire Dairy opened in the 1960s as the community’s answer to a supermarket, milk was 4c and popsicles were known as T.T.2s .
Nearly six decades on, it’s added to its name - Hampshire Fruit and Dairy - doubled in size and sells products unheard of when it opened on Hampshire St, Aranui, 59 years ago. But the same family is still ringing up sales behind the till.
The Lallus are celebrating the milestone on Friday with $1 pies and cans, and a birthday chocolate cake.
Bought in 1965, Lallu brothers, Gavan and Morar originally from Gujarat State, India, took on the dairy when their youngest brother, Prabhu was in his last year of primary school.
Prabhu said he helped out at the dairy after school in still pre-decimal days.
“I remember working here July 10, 1967. ‘DC Day’ they called it, Decimal Currency Day, and we were working with two sets of notes. The old pounds, then the dollars.”
Ten years after his older brothers landed the business, he said they thought about giving it up as it was getting “too busy” to manage alone. “I said, ‘No don’t, I’ll come into the business with you.’”
Spending much of his life associated with the dairy and working the counter has led to many fond memories, adapting to multiple changes in legislation and experiencing the kindness of a community. When Morar died “the whole community came out here for the hearse and the kindergarten was waiting at the corner,” Prabhu said.
“It’s because of the people around here, we still survive.”
Iconic Kiwi dairies have been in decline for some years, but back in the day when his brothers were donning their aprons to greet customers, and Prabhu his smock, dairies were essential.
“We used to stock all the grocery items in those days, because there were no supermarkets. The only thing they had in those days were Four Squares.”
In the row of Hampshire St shops, he said there was a key store, an IGA, Four Square, his dairy, a GHB (grocery store), and another dairy around the corner — all selling similar items, he said.
“We used to sell all the fireworks, all the cigarettes, every single type. You just couldn’t keep up with the cigarettes in those days because they were cheap. A whole packet was 25c.” And sweets could be bought with spare change. “You used to get three or four loose lollies for 1c.”
His wife Majula added milk was 4c and it was just 33c for butter.
Since dairies have been the target of break-ins, he said the premises had been made into “a fortress” with cameras, double gates and metal grated ceilings in the back room.
But most of their interactions with the public are positive, including serving two customers who visited the store in its early days, Prabhu said.
“You wouldn’t believe it.”
A woman recognised him recently at a mall and said to him, “I used to come in your shop in the 60s”. He laughed that she remembered him - “I couldn’t recognise her, quite surprising.”
Prabhu stepped down from the dairy in 1990, going on to open a successful Indian restaurant, Raj Mahal in central Christchurch.
These days, he is the landlord of the building, while his nephew and niece (brother and sister) Reetesh (Ritz) Lallu and Reena Lallu run the business.
“I’m proud my niece and nephew are carrying [it on], rather than it’s closed down and it’s gone.
“I hope they ... get to 100 years.”