Raw Milk, Warm Deal
After extensive public consultation, the Minister for Food Safety has announced a new policy on the production
and sale of raw milk (from any milking animal) to consumers. From 1 March 2016, raw milk can be sold directlyfrom the farmer to consumers either at the farm or via home deliveries provided suppliers meet certain criteria– Ministry of Primary Industries
Electric refrigeration arrived over 80 years ago in New Zealand and surely today, regardless of your income, wealthor lack thereof, there is a fridge in your house. The common-sense and reliance on that old “ice box” is something
we all take for granted and naturally anticipate one and all (even elected officials) to understand the merits of chilling
food to avoid bacterial growth or decay in raw, or cooked products ready for consumption.
Understandable, it therefore is not, that the heavily industry-lobbied Government has declared that instead ofmaking raw milk available in licenced premises (like supermarkets) next to the other similar dangerous goods such as
cigarettes and alcohol, alternatively, the Government has set itself a task of colluding to ostracise what is clearly an
established market, and what threatens to potentially take a very miniscule percent of the overall milk industry
revenue and profit.
Having already made off-limits safe licenced premises for raw milk to be sold (like supermarkets and dairies), a while
ago people were forced to form Milk Clubs, which for some reason reminds me of an era of Doo Wop, Dilly Dilly,
Swing and Rockabilly.
In the latest attack on the freedoms of raw milk drinking New Zealanders, instead of continuing to deliver the milkfrom a refrigerated delivery truck to the “Milk Club” refrigerated drop-off points, where families and individuals cancollect their dangerous goods, now the Government is proposing to do away with intermediate refrigeration andforce the already busy farmer to become like a traditional “milk-man” of old, trawling the streets to deliver the milk
to households directly.
Notwithstanding the utter waste of a consumers time and resources in travelling up to 100 kms in a round-trip, thealternative method of procuring said dangerous goods is direct from the farm gate, which, given the Governments
concern about carbon emissions and global warming, not to mention unrefrigerated transportation of the dangerous
raw product, it creates somewhat of a paradox against which I have always been taught to be cautious.
By potentially eliminating safe modern refrigeration from the delivery equation, is the Government attempting tocreate a raw milk health crises to finally have some justification for clamping down on this wayward obsession of a
few raw milk nutters that must threaten not only the fabric of society but also the well-being of all those who havenot been vaccinated against raw milk?
Does raw milk have to kill off 5,000 New Zealanders per year1 (smoking and passive smoking), or up to 1,000 New
Zealanders per year2 (alcohol related causes), or cause our Police to deal with 124,000 incidents per year2 (alcoholrelated), (all of which the financial implications are counted in the 100s of millions of taxpayer dollars), before it willbe allowed to sell itself in supermarkets?
In comparison, the proposal of the Government today to eliminate the current safe delivery of raw milk to securemodern refrigerators, will increase by 100-fold the potential for contaminated raw milk to be consumed by families
and individuals in the future, and therefore indicates that the suggested danger raw milk poses to lives in our society
might appear to be a rort in the machination of the Government approach on this matter.
Please note, this a concern about maintaining regular safe delivery, not on the new safety regulations surrounding theproduction and supply of raw milk, procedures to avoid faecal contamination, testing of all cattle in New Zealand for TB, or newrules regarding the labelling of products.
Author: Antoon Moonen, Editor, Tai Whakarara – The WHOMP, Tauranga, New Zealand (www.whomp.nz), 30 Oct. 2015
Article may be reproduced without permission, subject to proper acknowledgement.

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Smoking kills 5,000 New Zealanders every year, Health Sponsorship Council, February 2009
Alcohol Quick Facts, Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand, November 2010