Dungeness Valley Creamery of Sequin, Washington, one of the largest, if not the largest, raw milk producers in the Pacific Northwest has just resumed selling raw milk after suspending its sales since April 9th. The Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) informed the dairy on April 8 that one sample of the dairy’s milk had tested positive for shiga-toxin producing Escherichia coli (STEC). The batch WSDA sampled on March 25th had an expiration date of April 6. No illnesses have been attributed to consumption of the dairy’s raw milk. The dairy’s owners, Ryan and Sarah McCarthy, issued a voluntary recall on April 9, taking back product from a number of the many retail stores it sells to in Washington state.
The McCarthys worked with WSDA to get approval from the department to resume raw milk sales but going more than two weeks without sales has caused a major financial loss for the dairy. Having to dump the milk for almost two weeks has cost the dairy around $40,000 in sales revenue.
A customer of Dungeness set up a GoFundMe page for the dairy to help them financially through the difficult time anticipating that the dairy would be reinstated sooner. The McCarthys decided that, in appreciation of the funding they had and would receive from the GoFundMe campaign, they will donate about 1,000 gallons of milk to local food banks over the coming months.
The dairy has been producing nutrient-dense raw milk for over a decade now and is an important part of Washington’s local food system. Please help support Dungeness Valley Creamery by making a contribution to its GoFundMe campaign.
Website – http://www.dungenessvalleycreamery.com/
Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/DungenessValleyCreamery/
GoFundMe – https://www.gofundme.com/life-on-a-raw-milk-dairy
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The McCarthy’s are a really nice couple that run a beautiful, so clean you could (almost) eat off the floor operation. We had bought product that was within the recall dates but there was no way I was going to return it. We drank it without any problem (Just like I KNEW it would be)
I still think it was a pretty dirty trick for the WSDA to take a sample from an expired batch, take a week to do a 48hr testing procedure & cause the Dungeness Creamery to lose two weeks production.
There are MANY more problems with conventional pasteurized milk than there is nationwide with raw milk (Approx 3 instances for pasteurized to every 1 for Raw milk) BUT you NEVER hear about any recalls of conventional processed milk — IMO, there’s an agenda & it is probably financed by the big dairy associations & their lobbyists.