Plano dairy farm seeing increased demand for raw milk

by Shea Yarborough of North Texas Daily

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The farm has a lot to change to adapt to the high demand for raw milk.

Lavon Farms, a hidden dairy on Jupiter Road in Plano, has seen a drastic increase in the demand for raw milk. Customers are paying as much as $8 for a gallon, said Todd Moore, a third-generation dairyman and Lavon Farm’s owner.

“We sold 250 gallons of raw milk last Saturday,” Moore said. “There isn’t a single grocery store in Plano that sold 250 gallons of milk.”

A month ago, Moore reached out to Denton’s Cupboard Natural Foods grocery store in an attempt to sell his product, he said. Now customers can find Lucky Layla products, the processing branch of the Lavon Farms family tree, in stock at the Cupboard.

“The Cupboard is the first grocery store to carry my entire product line,” Moore said.

Danielle Dubose, a Cupboard employee and psychology senior, said all of her friends shop at the Cupboard. Dubose also has family in the dairy business.

“I would drink raw milk,” Dubose said.

Raw milk

But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is not in favor of selling raw milk, listing several concerns on its Web site, www.fda.gov, last updated August 2009.

“Raw milk, no matter how carefully produced, may be unsafe,” the Web site stated.

Some people feel that it is all about the way the product is handled.

Angela Pedersen, a 20-year-old Denton resident and former Cupboard employee, said she will drink raw milk as long as it comes from a trustworthy source.

“We eat raw fish when we eat sushi, and raw spinach,” Pedersen said. “Everything has the possibility of disease.”

Ten diseases were listed on the FDA Web site, including E. coli and salmonella, but the list could be longer since raw milk has the possibility for multiple pathogens, it said. However, no cases were directly linked to the consumption of raw milk.

“There were 45 outbreaks in which unpasteurized milk or cheese made from unpasteurized milk were implicated,” according to the Web site.

While the FDA regulates how raw milk is pasteurized, produced and sold, it’s up to the individual state to sell raw milk directly to the customer, Moore said.

“You should be able to get raw milk,” Moore said.

Pedersen, who is usually a soy-milk drinker, said she likes Lucky Layla’s drinkable yogurt.

There is a huge difference in the way you feel when you drink pasteurized milk versus unpasteurized organic milk, Pedersen said. The only reason she drinks Lucky Layla products is because she knows it comes from a local dairy.

The hidden dairy

Nestled between apartment complexes, gas stations and down the street from Texas Instruments, Lavon Farms is the last dairy in Collin County, Moore said. In 1936, William Moore, Todd Moore’s father, bought the land that would become Lavon Farms.

In September of 2009, Moore made the decision to obtain the license to sell the farm’s raw milk directly to the consumer.

“There are people who live two blocks away who don’t know we’re here,” Moore said.

365 days a year, Lavon Farm’s 150 Guernsey, Jersey and Milking Shorthorn cows are milked 14 hours out of the work day, Moore said.

But the farm has a lot to change to adapt to the high demand for raw milk.

“After last Saturday, we sat down and realized we have a lot that needs to change,” Moore said. “We don’t even accept credit cards.”

Most dairies are confinement dairies — the cows never leave the concrete. But Lavon Farms is a pasture dairy. Moore’s cows are allowed free range on the farm’s 200 acres of pasture.

“They do have brains, they have feelings and are affectionate,” Moore said.

Moore stated that several of his friends who have 1,000-cow dairy farms have borrowed all the money they can from banks to keep their businesses afloat. But because Lavon Farms is a small dairy, Moore said, they might be able to weather the economic storm because they are producing and selling raw milk. Bigger is not better, he said.

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