Aurora Organic Dairy is an American company, based in

Boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In ...

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

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

and

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

. 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 in the United States and 23 other ...

, Safeway, Target and

Costco Costco Wholesale Corporation is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only big-box warehouse club retail stores. As of 2021, Costco is the third-largest retailer in the world, and as of August 2024, Cos ...

. 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 List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

. In 2005, this had 5300 cows. At this time, the organic standards 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 501(c) organization, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, non-profit watchdog group with the stated goal of upholding the integrity of Organic farming, organic, Local food, local, and other f ...

, 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 programs ...

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. Types of pasture Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, c ...

and were instead kept in

feedlot A feedlot or feed yard is a type of animal feeding operation (AFO) which is used in intensive animal farming, notably beef cattle, but also swine, horses, sheep, turkeys, chickens or ducks, prior to slaughter. Large beef feedlots are called conc ...

s 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, United States of America governing organic food. It is also the name of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service ...

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 an executive department of the United States federal government that aims to meet the needs of commercial farming and livestock food production, promotes agricultural trade and producti ...

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