Friday, June 1, 2007

Dairy confessions and information

Confession: I do experience some guilt when, for ease and convenience, I buy something other than a local product which I know is available at another stop. I have felt that way for some time about my habit of picking up a quart of milk (for my tea) when in Trader Joe's - no longer a funky California company, but a nationwide one, and German owned.

Information: Then yesterday I actually read the milk carton (why have I never done this, when I read all the other labels?) and found out - lo and behold - it is milk from Northern California, bovine growth hormone free.

Then I got sceptical, so I decided to track down where it was from. There is a note on the carton with the number of the plant where it was packed (pasteurized). I never did find an on-line directory to lead me to the specific plant. But I did find a list of state codes. Any beginning with 06 are California.

You probably already know this, and I've just been a blind consumer.
But in case you don't, here is a list:
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~ear/ims-toc.html#nucs

1 comment:

John Leech said...

Lucky you have "Clo" - Clover Stornetta. We have Crystal here in Sacramento. I think it's okay. Sonoma county dairy farmers must be looking at moving away from supplying bulk producers - the Petaluma plant that closed a few years ago just collected milk to make Safeway's three kinds of cheese (white, orange, and white with holes). In England where we were last week there is a strong movement to support locally grown foods - even The Door, the diocese of Oxford newspaper, gave its strong support. Of course I also did my bit to encourage local producers of malted barley drinks.