FRESNO — Raw Farm founder Mark McAfee addressed the company's milk screening processes and past incidents of illness related to its products. Raw Farm, located 20 miles southwest of Fresno, California, generates approximately $30 million in annual revenue.

Raw Farm screens each batch of milk for pathogens including salmonella, E. coli, campylobacter, and listeria. Milk batches that test positive for pathogens are diverted for cheese production, with the exception of salmonella-positive batches. Those batches are either dumped or pasteurized. McAfee said, "We catch these things and divert the milk immediately." He also described a system where "We have a red-flag system here, where if there's anything that gets really out of whack, they can immediately tag the milk, and it doesn't go to anything but cheese."

The Food and Drug Administration instructed McAfee to stop using pathogen-positive milk for cheese production two years prior to the article's publication. The FDA had not publicly announced Raw Farm's use of pathogen-positive milk for cheese production at that time. State regulators have linked Raw Farm to more than a dozen recalls and outbreaks, which have resulted in hundreds of illnesses. Bird flu was also discovered in Raw Farm's milk. McAfee stated, "I've put a couple kids in the hospital, and they have been sick, but they recovered."

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, was a customer of Raw Farm before his confirmation to the position. McAfee runs Raw Farm with his adult son and daughter. In the early 2000s, McAfee produced pasteurized milk for Organic Valley.