Raw Milk Updates, Spring 2024
December 15, 2024PCR Testing for Bird Flu in Dairy
July 20, 2025
Photo credit: Tanya Barrow (Unsplash.com)
A good starting point to change the federal laws on raw dairy would be for the one raw dairy product FDA already regulates cheese. There currently is no raw cheese aged under 60 days in final package form for human consumption that can be transported across state lines.
RFK Jr. could issue a standard of identity regulation with an aging requirement for a specific raw cheese of less than 60 days. There is no law that needs to change for the HHS Secretary to be able to do this. The regulation establishing the interstate ban (21 CFR 1240.61 – raw milk and milk products) provides that there is an exception to the ban “where alternative procedures to pasteurization are provided for by regulation, such as in Part 133 of this chapter for curing of certain cheese varieties.” The term “curing” is another word for aging. The definition of “milk product”s in 21 CFR 1240.3 provides that the ban extends to cheese “where not specifically exempted by regulation.”
Titled “Requirements for Specific Standardized Cheese and Related Products”, 21 CFR 133 Subpart B, among other regulations, establishes standards of identity for specific cheeses and for the general categories of hard cheeses, soft-ripened cheeses and semisoft cheeses.
Statute 21 USC 341 (Definitions and standards for food) provides, in part, that “whenever in the judgment of the Secretary such action will promote honesty and fair dealing in the interest of consumers, he shall promulgate regulations fixing and establishing, for any food under its common or usual name so far as practicable, a reasonable definition and standard of identity, a reasonable standard of quality, or reasonable standards of fill of container.”
In FDA’s words standards of identity “have been established to ensure that the characteristics, ingredients and production processes of specific foods are consistent with what consumers expect.”
There a number of cheeses listed in Part 133 regulations that can be sold pasteurized or raw, but the aging requirement for all raw cheeses in the current regulations is 60 days. There is no basis in fact or science for a uniform aging requirement. Different kinds of cheese don’t have the same water content, salt content, period of growth for harmful bacteria or type of culture used. For instance, in the European Union which does take these factors into account in its regulations, the shelf-life for camembert is only 57 days. The uniformity in the aging requirement hurts cheese producers who could be getting paid earlier than 60 days for some of the cheeses they produce and who are prohibited, in effect, from producing raw soft ripened and raw semi-soft cheeses.
The regulations for hard cheeses (21 CFR 133.150), soft ripened cheeses (21 CFR 133.182) and semisoft cheeses (21 CFR 133.187) all begin with the following statement:
“The cheeses for which definitions and standards of identity are prescribed by this section are….cheeses for which specifically applicable definitions and standards of identity are not prescribed by other definitions of this part . . . .”
The cheeses in these three regulations all have a 60-day aging requirement if they are raw, but there is nothing preventing the HHS Secretary from issuing a regulation for a soft cheese like feta that has less than a 60-day aging requirement; there is nothing legally precluding an aging requirement as little as a one-day period. Feta has a good safety profile because it is very acidic with a high salt content and a relatively low moisture content.
It would be a good cheese to start with in lowering the aging requirement for cheeses where the science supports that action.
Photo credit: Monika Borys (Unsplash.com)
The interstate ban on raw milk and raw milk products has been a blessing in that it has left it to the states to come up with their own individual laws for raw milk in intrastate commerce rather than having an agency (FDA) that has traditionally been more hostile to raw milk than any other government agency, dictating what their laws should be. There is concern that lifting the ban now would enable FDA to issue and interpret regulations that would further restrict rather than increase raw dairy access. A piecemeal approach to eliminating the uniform 60-day aging requirement for raw cheese could be a better first step to take in changing federal raw dairy law and policy while the necessary shift in culture at FDA is taking place.
