Yes. Retail sale of raw milk is legal in California, under a state permit system: the dairy must hold a market milk permit, meet numeric bacteria and herd-health standards, and put a state-mandated warning on every label. Twelve bottled brands are licensed, two of them in Southern California, and none of it can cross state lines. Here is the rule set, and the parts I could not verify.
California is one of the easier places in the country to buy raw milk legally, and almost nobody I talk to knows the actual rules. They know one of two stories. Either raw milk is a back-alley product you have to know a guy for, or it is a cure-all the government is hiding from you. Neither is the rule set on the books.
This piece is about the rule set. What the state allows, what a dairy has to do to be allowed, what the label has to say, and what is still unsettled. I am not going to tell you whether to drink it. I am going to tell you how to check what you are buying, because that part is not a matter of opinion.
Is raw milk legal in California?
Start with the plain fact. The California Department of Public Health says it directly: although the sale of raw milk and raw dairy products is legal in the state, all such products are required to carry a warning on their labels. The California Department of Food and Agriculture runs the licensing side and publishes a summary of the requirements and a list of licensed bottled raw milk brands. Both are linked at the bottom.
This is not true everywhere. State rules on raw milk run from outright bans to farm-gate-only sales to retail shelves, and California sits toward the permissive end. That is the “one of the more permissive regimes” description, and it holds up, with one caveat I will get to: it is permissive about *where in California* you can buy it, not about where it can travel.
California raw milk laws: the permit and testing standards
The word “permit” does a lot of work in this conversation, so here is what is behind it. According to CDFA’s raw milk requirements summary, retail raw milk has to come from a dairy farm that holds a market milk permit, issued either by CDFA or by a County Approved Milk Inspection Service. From there the summary lists specific, measurable standards:
- Bacteria. No more than 15,000 bacteria per milliliter by standard plate count, and no more than 10 coliform bacteria per milliliter.
- Somatic cells. No more than 600,000 per milliliter for cow’s milk, and 1,500,000 per milliliter for goat’s milk.
- Herd health. Cows or goats must be tested and found negative for brucellosis, and nonreactive for tuberculosis at least once a year, by an approved veterinarian.
- Sanitation scores. The dairy farm must score at least 90 percent on the market milk dairy farm sanitation scorecard. The packaging facility has to hit at least 80 percent on its own scorecard.
- Temperature. The milk has to be cooled to 45°F or below and held there from milking through the consumer’s purchase.
CDFA’s raw milk page adds that licensed product is subject to monthly pathogen testing by the state’s Milk and Dairy Food Safety Branch.
I want to dwell on why this matters beyond food safety. Almost everything else in the “local food” world runs on a claim you cannot check. A farm says it is pasture-raised, you nod, you pay. I wrote about that gap in what meat labels actually mean, where most of the words on the package turned out to have no legal test behind them at all. Raw milk is the reverse case. It is one of the few foods where the claim “this is legal and inspected” comes with a state license, numeric standards and recurring testing that someone other than the seller performs. You can look the dairy up. That is rare, and it is worth noticing.
The required raw milk warning label
Every raw milk product sold in California has to carry a specific warning. The text, as CDFA publishes it, begins: “WARNING Raw (unpasteurized) milk and raw milk dairy products may contain disease-causing micro-organisms,” and goes on to list the people at highest risk: newborns and infants, the elderly, pregnant women, people taking corticosteroids, antibiotics or antacids, and people with chronic illnesses or other conditions that weaken immunity.
You will see this on the bottle. If you are handed raw milk without it, that is information about the seller.
Licensed raw milk brands in California, and where they are
CDFA publishes a list of licensed bottled raw milk brands. The version I found is undated, so treat it as a starting point and confirm against the live page. It names twelve: Claravale Farms (Paicines), Desi Milk (San Martin), Duivenvoorden Farms (Cottonwood), Farmer Joe’s (Modesto), Leche Bronca (Modesto), New Haven Dairy (Lomita), Perennial Pastures (Warner Springs), Raw Farm (Fowler), Real Food (San Martin), San Martin Milk Company (San Martin), Schoch Family Farmstead (Salinas), and Valley Milk Simply Bottled (Modesto).
Look at that map. Most of these are in the Central Valley and the Central Coast. Two are in Southern California: New Haven Dairy in Lomita, in Los Angeles County, and Perennial Pastures in Warner Springs, in San Diego County. The rest ship cold-chain product down to us, or we drive up to them, or a store carries it.
I have not verified which stores in our ten counties stock which brand, and I am not going to guess. Stock changes. If you want a specific brand, ask the brand where it is sold, and ask the store whether it stays refrigerated from delivery to shelf. The temperature requirement above is the one that fails first in practice, because it is the one that depends on everyone after the dairy.
The part that is not permissive: it stays in California
Here is the caveat from earlier. Federal regulation, 21 CFR 1240.61, says that no person shall deliver into interstate commerce, or sell after interstate shipment, any milk or milk product in final package form for direct human consumption unless it has been pasteurized.
So California raw milk is, in practice, a California market. The licensed brands above sell inside the state. The same federal rule is why raw milk is a recurring fight in Congress. Bills to allow interstate sales have been introduced more than once and have not become law. I am not going to tell you where the current one stands, because that is exactly the kind of fact that goes stale, and Learn articles are supposed to stay true. If you want the current status, search the bill on congress.gov.
For a buyer in Southern California this mostly does not matter. You are buying in-state. It matters if you are trying to understand why the market looks the way it does: why there are twelve licensed brands rather than hundreds, and why a dairy that wants to grow has a ceiling.
What I could not verify
Two things I would rather flag than smooth over.
Herd shares and cow shares. These are arrangements where you own a piece of an animal, or a share of a herd, instead of buying milk at retail. They exist. CDPH documents an outbreak linked to a cow-share program in 2008. But I could not find CDFA’s current position on their legal status in California in a source I could open and quote, so I am not going to assert one. If someone offers you a share, ask them directly what permit or exemption they operate under, and ask CDFA if the answer is vague. The licensed-brand route above is the one I can document.
Farmers markets and direct sales. The CDFA pages I read do not say whether licensed raw milk can be sold at a certified farmers market, or only at farm gates and stores. I would not assume either. Check with the market manager. You can browse our Markets directory for the market itself, but the directory does not tell you what a given vendor may legally sell.
The risk side, stated plainly
I would be doing you a disservice if I left this out, and the same rule applies to this article as to everything else on this site: the claims have to be checkable.
CDPH warns that raw milk may contain disease-causing microorganisms, and names Brucella, Campylobacter, E. coli O157:H7, Listeria, Salmonella and Yersinia. It lists diarrhea, stomach cramps and fever as possible outcomes, and rare severe ones including kidney failure and miscarriage. CDPH recommends that people at higher risk, and anyone who wants to reduce their risk of foodborne infection, not drink raw milk or eat raw dairy products. It documents one specific cluster: Campylobacter infections in May and June 2008 among members of a cow-share program, one of whom developed a form of Guillain-Barré syndrome requiring prolonged hospitalization.
That is the state’s position, and it is a fair thing for the state to say. The permit system exists because the risk is real, and the testing regime exists to push it down, not to zero. Notice what I am not saying: I am not claiming raw milk is more nutritious than pasteurized milk, and I am not claiming it is dangerous in any particular proportion. Those are contested, and I would be inventing numbers if I gave you one. If you have a pregnancy, a compromised immune system, or small children in the house, that is a conversation for your own doctor, not for a blog.
How to buy raw milk in Southern California
If you decide this is something you want, the checkable version looks like this:
- Buy a licensed bottled brand from the CDFA list, and confirm the list on the live CDFA page before you go.
- Read the label. The warning text should be there.
- Ask about the cold chain. The standard is 45°F or below from milking to purchase. Ask the store, and feel the bottle.
- Ask the dairy for its permit if you are buying anywhere other than a store shelf. A legitimate permit holder will not mind the question.
- Do not treat “local” or “organic” as a substitute for any of the above. As the meat labels piece lays out, those words are not the same thing as an inspection.
For the broader picture of buying food straight from the people who produce it, our Producers directory is the place to start, and the cost side of buying direct is worked through in what a quarter cow actually costs.
The short version: in California you can legally buy raw milk, the dairy behind it is licensed and tested to published numbers, and the label tells you the risk in the state’s own words. That is a better set of verifiable facts than most of what sits in the dairy case. What you do with it is yours to decide.
Frequently asked questions
Is raw milk legal in California?
Yes. The California Department of Public Health states that the sale of raw milk and raw dairy products is legal in the state, and that all such products must carry a warning on their labels. The dairy has to hold a market milk permit issued by CDFA or by a County Approved Milk Inspection Service.
Can you buy raw milk in a store in California?
Retail sale is legal, and CDFA publishes a list of licensed bottled raw milk brands. Which stores carry which brand changes, and I have not verified stock in any Southern California store, so ask the brand where it is sold and ask the store whether the bottle stays at 45°F or below from delivery to shelf.
What does the California raw milk warning label say?
It begins: “WARNING Raw (unpasteurized) milk and raw milk dairy products may contain disease-causing micro-organisms.” It then lists the people at highest risk: newborns and infants, the elderly, pregnant women, people taking corticosteroids, antibiotics or antacids, and people with chronic illnesses or other conditions that weaken immunity.
Can raw milk be shipped across state lines?
Not as a packaged consumer product. Federal regulation 21 CFR 1240.61 prohibits delivering milk or milk products in final package form for direct human consumption into interstate commerce unless they have been pasteurized. California raw milk is, in practice, a California market.
Is raw milk safe?
The state’s position is that raw milk may contain disease-causing microorganisms, including Campylobacter, Salmonella, E. coli O157:H7 and Listeria, and CDPH recommends that higher-risk people, and anyone who wants to reduce their risk of foodborne infection, not drink it. Licensing and testing are designed to push the risk down, not to zero. I have no reliable number for the difference in risk, so I am not offering one.
Sources
- CDFA, Raw Milk (Milk and Dairy Food Safety)
- CDFA, Raw Milk Requirements Summary (PDF)
- CDFA, Licensed Bottled Raw Milk Brands (PDF, undated)
- CDPH, Raw Milk and Dairy Products
- eCFR, 21 CFR 1240.61, Mandatory pasteurization for all milk and milk products in final package form intended for direct human consumption
Find growers you can ask these questions to in the Producers directory, or a stand near you in Markets.