USA: Aurora dairy reaches settlement

Colorado-based Aurora Organic Dairy has announced it has reached an agreement to settle all claims in the consolidated class action lawsuits pending before the Federal Court for the Eastern District of Missouri in the USA. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals and the district court confirmed that the leading producer of private-brand organic milk and butter for retailers in the USA was at all times properly labeled and sold as organic, and that Aurora's milk has been certified as organic by a USDA-accredited certifying agent since 2004. The only remaining action in this lawsuit, which was originally filed in 2007, concerned marketing claims made by Aurora and its customers, The Sacramento Bee reports.

While the company said it was confident it would prevail in trial on the remaining marketing claims, Aurora reached the settlement to avoid the cost and distraction of protracted litigation. According to the agreement, the company will pay a one-time amount of $7.5 million to cover all settlement class costs. The settlement agreement, which is subject to court approval, dismisses all claims brought against Aurora and its retail customers, and contains no admission of wrongdoing by any of the parties. The full statement of Aurora can be read at The Sacramento Bee.

The Cornucopia Institute, a farm policy research group that acts as an organic industry watchdog in the USA, filed a formal legal complaint with the USDA in 2005, alleging that Aurora was producing its milk on giant feedlots, confining as many as 4,400 milk cows, instead of grazing their cattle, as federal organic standards require. Cornucopia's first complaint was dismissed. A second complaint was eventually adjudicated by federal regulators finding that not only had Aurora "willfully" violated regulations requiring pasture for their animals but it also used non-organic subcontractors and illegally brought conventional cows into their organic operations, the Cornucopia Institute reports. One of the violations documented by the USDA was selling milk that did not meet the federal organic standards.

The class action lawsuit was brought on behalf of consumers in more than 30 states who felt defrauded after purchasing private-label, or store brand, organic milk at a number of retailers that Aurora specialized in serving, including Walmart, Costco, Target, Safeway and other large grocery chains. The class action lawsuit, and subsequent settlement, centered on labeling, graphics and marketing claims depicting cows happily grazing on lush pasture, and in some cases family farm scenes, when in reality the animals were living short, stressful lives being forced to produce copious quantities of milk in the kind of industrial conditions that organic consumers thought they were avoiding, the Cornucopia Institute reports. The full statement of The Cornucopia Institute is available here: http://www.cornucopia.org/