A First: Milk With a Warning Label

After being absent from store shelves for four months because of quarantined dairy herds, Stueve’s Natural raw certified milk has reappeared in Southern California carrying a state-required label warning about the potential presence of “disease-causing microorganisms.”

The cautionary statement, placed in prominent positions on the Claremont-based firm’s non-pasteurized dairy line, is the first such warning to appear directly on food products in the nation.

The state’s Department of Health Services ordered warning labels in February under emergency authorization. At the time, the agency stated, “Isolates of the agents that cause salmonellosis, listeriosis and brucellosis have been recovered from raw milk. These illnesses can be debilitating and sometimes fatal.”

The warning is strongly opposed by Stueve’s Natural, which argued for its repeal at a hearing in Sacramento yesterday. Wednesday’s testimony will be reviewed by Health Services Department officials in order to determine whether the warning requirement should be made permanent.

“The warning is another step to intimidate Stueve’s Natural and the people that consume these products,” said Boyd Clark, the dairy’s general manager. “We’ve been selling raw certified milk for 35 plus years and to have an emergency regulation (requiring a warning) seems a bit unusual.”

The warning label now reads: “Raw (unpasteurized) dairy products may contain disease-producing bacteria and other microorganisms. Persons at highest risk of disease from these organisms include newborns and infants; the elderly; pregnant women; those taking corticosteroids, antibiotics or antacids; and those having chronic illnesses or other conditions that impair their immunity.”

Since 1977, the Health Services Department has issued 44 public health advisories regarding contaminated raw milk that resulted in the product’s removal from store shelves.

Only one of five herds currently owned by Stueve Brothers Farms in Chino is allowed to have its milk sold as “raw certified,” according to state officials.

The others remain quarantined by the state’s Department of Food and Agriculture, meaning that all milk must undergo pasteurization because of the presence of harmful bacteria. Three of the Stueve Brothers’ herds show signs of brucella contamination; the fourth continues to test positive for listeria, according to Tina Taggart, a Food and Agriculture Department information officer.

Before a herd’s quarantine can be lifted, every cow older than 18 months must test free of the suspect contaminant four times during a four-month period, according to Lawrence Vanderwagen, animal health branch chief for the Food and Agriculture Department in Sacramento.

Clark, of Stueve’s Natural, said the warning label requirement has been costly for the firm. Because the text must be a certain size, the label is too large to place on quart or pint raw milk cartons or on raw cottage cheese containers. Those items have been temporarily discontinued and only 1/2 gallon cartons of raw certified milk and one-pound packages of raw butter are being sold.

The dairy is asking the Health Services Department for a complete explanation for the warning requirement. And if the warning label is to be made permanent, then the firm wants to change the text and reduce the size requirements, Clark said.

“People want the freedom to drink raw certified milk,” he said. “To have recalls and the product off the market is very frustrating for Stueve’s Natural as a company and for our consumers. If a label would eliminate these problems then maybe we could live with that . . . We would just like to be left alone.”

Stueve’s Natural currently produces 5,000 to 6,000 gallons of raw certified milk a day and the company estimates that about 100,000 Californians consume the product.