Page 87 - Spring2013

MISSOURI – MORNINGLAND DAIRY
On January 25 a two-and-a-half year battle between Morningland Dairy and the Missouri State Milk Board ended when
the Milk Board carted off 36,420 pounds of raw cheese from Morningland’s facility to a local landfill for disposal. Morn-
ingland owners, Joe and Denise Dixon, and dozens of supporters of the dairy were present to witness the destruction
of cheese never proven to be harmful.

The Milk Board shut down Morningland’s manufacturing operation and ordered all cheese at the facility embargoed
on August 26, 2010, after receiving a report from the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) that
Morningland cheese seized in a raid of the Rawesome food club in Venice, California in June 2010 had tested positive
for Listeria monocytogenes and Staphyloccocus aureus. Not a single block of cheese in the warehouse had the same
batch number as the cheese seized in the Rawesome raid. A Milk Board inspector initially told Joe Dixon that he would
only be shut down for a few days—but that changed when FDA stepped up their involvement in the case a short time
later and pressured the Milk Board not to let Morningland resume their operations. The Milk Board sent the Dixons a
letter requesting that they destroy the entire inventory of cheese at the facility on October 1, 2010; when the Dixons
refused, the Milk Board filed a petition in the Circuit Court of Howell County to obtain an order for the destruction of
the Morningland cheese. After a two-day trial before Judge David Dunlop, the judge issued a decision on February 23,
2011, ordering the destruction of the cheese. Morningland appealed the decision but the Court of Appeals sided with
the Milk Board on September 27, 2012. A petition to the Missouri Supreme Court to hear the case was rejected on
December 18, paving the way for the destruction of the cheese to take place.

Neither the Milk Board nor FDA ever tested any of the cheese stored at Morningland. FDA did take one hundred en-
vironmental swabs at the facility, all of which tested negative for listeria. Some cheese samples taken by a Morningland
employee tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes and Staph. aureus but the employee didn’t follow proper protocols
in taking the samples; if the test results had been negative, they never would have been accepted by either the Milk
Board or a court as valid. There was no accusation that any cheese Morningland produced had made anyone sick; there
had never been any reported illness from the consumption of Morningland products in the thirty years the farmstead
cheese operation had been in business.

The Morningland case was about FDA’s agenda to restrict access to raw dairy products with the eventual goal of banning
them. The agency doesn’t hesitate in sacrificing a business like the Dixons’ in order to move its agenda along. Media
coverage about the destruction of the cheese was heavy, hopefully keeping in the public memory FDA’s role in causing
the end of a once prosperous operation.

WASHINGTON – ESTRELLA FAMILY CREAMERY
On February 28 attorneys for Kelli and Anthony Estrella―owners of Estrella Family Creamery (Estrella) and the United
States Department of Justice filed a motion in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to voluntarily dismiss the Estrella’s ap-
peal of a lower court ruling permanently enjoining Estrella from selling cheese and giving FDA authority to inspect the
facility as well as empowering the agency to set the conditions on which Estrella could resume cheese sales. FDA had
shut down Estrella in 2010 for positive pathogen tests at a time when the creamery was on its way to resolving whatever
issues it had by working with the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA). Estrella had been in negotiations
with FDA since the court ruling over the terms enabling it to resume its cheese operation; Estrella was trying to limit FDA
jurisdiction over it by doing business only in intrastate commerce. Financially strapped and frustrated over the FDA’s
refusal to give specific answers on what the limits of the agency’s jurisdiction would be, Kelli and Anthony decided to
move on, putting their farm up for sale and ending a long battle with FDA.

Tami Parr, a past president of the Oregon Cheese Guild, commented in an Oregon Live interview on November 5,
2012, that Kelli Estrella “made some of the best cheeses that the Pacific Northwest has seen in modern times.” Estrella
won numerous domestic and international awards for the quality of its cheeses. Raw cheese consumers have suffered
a major loss.

For the latest developments on raw milk issues, go to www.thecompletepatient.com.

Those who have not joined the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund are encouraged to do so. Membership applica-
tions are available online at www.farmtoconsumer.org or by calling (703) 208-FARM (3276); the mailing address is 8116
Arlington Blvd, Suite 263, Falls Church, VA 22042.
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