Aurora Organic Dairy is an American company, based in Boulder,

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

, which operates large factory farms, each with thousands of dairy cows, in

and

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

. The company supplies and packages private-label, store-brand, organic dairy products for many of the country's largest grocery chains, including

Wal-Mart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

Safeway Safeway is an American supermarket chain founded by Marion Barton Skaggs in April 1915 in American Falls, Idaho. The chain provides grocery items, food and general merchandise and features a variety of specialty departments, such as bakery, d ...

Target Target may refer to: Physical items * Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports ** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports ** Aiming point, in field artillery, f ...

and

Costco Costco Wholesale Corporation (Trade name, doing business as Costco Wholesale and also known simply as Costco) is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only Big-box store, big-box retail stores (warehouse c ...

. The company was founded in 2003 by Marc Peperzak as a combined farm and bottling plant situated on a sloping plain north of

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

. In 2005, this had 5300 cows. At this time, the

organic standards Organic certification is a certification process for producers of organic food and other organic agricultural products, in the European Union more commonly known as ecological or biological products.Labelling, article 30 o''Regulation (EU) 2018/ ...

of the new company were already causing squabbles with other organic producers. The

Cornucopia Institute The Cornucopia Institute is a national food and farm policy watchdog group working to uphold the integrity of organic, local, and other forms of alternative agriculture. The 501(c)(3) non-profit organization is headquartered in Cornucopia, Wisco ...

, a Wisconsin-based farm policy research group representing organic and family-scale farmers, complained to the USDA's

Agricultural Marketing Service The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture; it maintains programs in five commodity areas: cotton and tobacco; dairy; fruit and vegetable; livestock and seed; and poultry. These program ...

about their livestock management and organic practices. In particular, it was alleged that their cows were not allowed to graze upon

pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or sw ...

and were instead kept in feedlots or buildings. This was said to be contrary to the

National Organic Program The National Organic Program (NOP) is the federal regulatory framework in the United States of America governing organic food. It is also the name of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) program ...

which the AMS administers. In August 2007, Aurora was sanctioned by the

United States Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...

after the agency investigated alleged violations of federal organic law. In August 2007, Aurora entered a consent agreement with the United States Department of Agriculture, and agreed not to sell as organic milk from cattle that may not have been raised organically. An agreement was reached by the USDA and Aurora which resulted in Aurora agreeing to reduce the size of its herd and provide cattle with pasture grazing during the growing season. In June 2009, a court dismissed lawsuits against Aurora, grocery chains that sold Aurora's milk, and QAI, a certification body. Cornucopia filed additional legal complaints against Aurora in 2009, claiming that Aurora does not provide sufficient grazing for its cattle, as required by regulations. According to Cornucopia, Aurora planted "substandard crops that are planted on an annual basis," not providing sufficient year-round grazing for cattle. Aurora responded by saying that Cornucopia's new claims were identical to those that were brought up in 2007, and were summarily dismissed. In September 2012, Aurora agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over deceptive trade practices in its organic milk business.

References

External links

*{{Official website, http://www.auroraorganic.com/ Companies based in Boulder, Colorado Dairy products companies of the United States Organic farming in the United States Food and drink companies established in 2003 2003 establishments in Colorado

See also

References

External links