Primary Industries Ministry compliance staff shut down sales of raw milk from properties in Auckland, Hawke’s Bay, Manawatu, Horowhenua, Nelson and Southland after a year-long investigation culminated in raids last week.
It is understood the investigations have been intense, involving at least five staff per property and with investigators scouring through both farm and dwelling buildings on the properties.
MPI food compliance managere Melinda Sando said the suppliers were operating outside the regulatory framework, established in 2016.
“There have been multiple instances in the past of people getting sick after drinking raw milk from some of these suppliers. We can’t let this continue.”
The raw milk standards implemented in response to disease outbreaks linked to sales.
A run of gastro-intestinal disease outbreaks from raw milk sales included a significant disease outbreak in Timaru in 2014. That resulted in seven people contracting campylobacter, New Zealand’s most notified gastro-intestinal disease.
The rules tightened hygiene standards in farm dairies supplying raw milk while any milk delivered off-farm requires customers to sign for it and volumes are recorded.
The regulations were generally accepted by suppliers in a sector that had fallen through legislative cracks till that point.
But Massey University epidemiologist associate Professor Jackie Benschop said latest post-graduate research on raw milk consumption indicates 7% of campylobacter victims in Manawatu drank raw milk.
“We recorded 1400 cases of the disease from 2012-17 so that is 105 people who consumed raw milk and got the disease.”
She believes the incidence of infection might be under-reported. Rural children are particularly vulnerable to infection.
“There was a higher proportion of raw milk-campylobacter association in rural children compared to urban.”
She suspected there is a need for greater understanding that raw milk can become infected with campylobacter through contact with dairy effluent.
Typically, campylobacter can cause vomiting and diarrhoea but can be linked to more serious complications including paralysis and kidney problems in children.
Sando said an assortment of tactics has been used by suppliers to continue selling the milk, advertising it as pet milk or bath milk.
In 2016 some aspects of the rules were challenged by established raw milk processors.
They included the testing frequency for high-risk diseases including listeria, campylobacter and salmonella, required once a month.
Raw milk vendor company Village Milk founder Mark Houston had challenged that frequency, maintaining once a week should have been required.
Houston welcomed MPI’s action.
“It is good to see MPI dealing to these bad operators. I have heard the standards some have been operating to are very poor.”
