Earlier this summer, three raw-food farmers were arrested and charged with a litany of felonies and misdemeanors for processing and selling unpasteurized milk and other products at farmers markets throughout Southern California, including Santa Barbara County.
According to documents from the California Superior Court filed on behalf of the County of Los Angeles, Sharon Ann Palmer, owner of Santa Paula-based Healthy Family Farms LCC, and James Cecil Stewart, owner of Rawesome Foods, are charged with violating California Food and Agriculture Code multiple times while being investigated between March and June of 2010.
Palmer and Stewart are charged with running an unlicensed milk plant. They are also charged with conspiring with another farmer, identified as Eugenie Victoria Bloch, and several others to sell various dairy and egg products illegally.
The court documents state that the three farmers, along with other Healthy Family Farm employees, created a private club—commonly referred to as Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)—through which to sell their goods.
Members of the CSA were reportedly required to sign an agreement stating, “I completely reject and refuse all government food standards. I fully trust the board members of this club to properly oversee and manage the preparation, handling, and packaging of the food in this club, including but not limited to raw meat, raw eggs, raw produce, raw juices, raw dairy … .”
The products were often sold at farmers markets or even out of the back of cars, the documents said, and only to club members.
One entry in the documents describes an email Bloch sent to a customer telling him he must pick up his order “after hours” at a Smart and Final parking lot in Santa Barbara. Another employee at a Healthy Family Farms booth at a Santa Barbara farmers market reportedly told a customer it’s illegal for her to sell unpasteurized dairy products at the market, and that he would have to meet her at an “after hours” location.
A search warrant executed at Healthy Family Farms revealed no pasteurization equipment or other required equipment in the processing room. Additionally, investigators found a large walk-in refrigerator with trays of uncovered whole raw chickens stored in proximity to dairy products, allowing for potential cross contamination.
Some other charges against the farmers include: unsanitary conditions; running a business without a license; running a food facility without a permit; and selling unlabeled or improperly labeled food.
Bail for Palmer and Stewart was set at around $120,000 each, and $60,000 for Bloch.
This article appears in Aug 11-18, 2011.