Two raw milk cheddar recalls in under a month have put E. coli back in the cheese news. One came from an established California company. The other came from a New York farm, and no illnesses have been reported. Neither story is about a careless maker. Together, they show how a hard-to-see hazard can reach even well-run creameries, and what small producers can do to lower the odds.
What Happened
In late September, the FDA and CDC linked an outbreak of E. coli O26:H11 to Graziers grass-fed raw milk cheeses from Sierra Nevada Cheese Company of Willows, California. Thirteen people in nine states fell ill, and eight were hospitalized. The FDA contacted the company on September 24 and recommended a recall. The company agreed and recalled all four Graziers raw milk cheeses that same day: medium cheddar, sharp cheddar, Monterey Jack and Jalapeño Jack. As of the FDA’s latest update, the source of the contamination had not been found.
On October 15, Family Farmstead Dairy of Worcester, New York, recalled one lot of its Raw Mild Cheddar, sold in 8-ounce packages with a lot code and best-by date of 7/22/27. Testing of two samples in Maryland found two Shiga toxin-producing E. coli strains, O26:H11 and O45:H2. The cheese went to grocers in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia and Massachusetts, and it may have reached other states through distributors. No illnesses have been reported. The company said it is working to find the cause and take corrective action.
If you have either cheese at home, don’t eat it. Throw it away or return it to the store, and clean any surface it touched.
Why E. Coli Is a Raw Milk Cheese Risk
Most E. coli is harmless. The strains behind these recalls are a different group, called Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, or STEC for short. They make a toxin that can cause severe, bloody diarrhea. In some people, mostly young children and older adults, it can lead to kidney failure.
STEC lives in the gut of healthy cattle, and the animals show no signs of it. That’s the core challenge. A cow can carry it while looking perfectly well, and a small slip at milking can move it into the milk. Pasteurization kills it. Raw milk cheese skips that step, so it depends on a chain of other safeguards. If you want the bigger picture on that choice, our guide to raw milk vs. pasteurized milk covers the flavor and the trade-offs.
What the 60-Day Rule Does, and Doesn’t, Do
U.S. law lets cheese be made from raw milk as long as it’s aged at least 60 days at 35°F or above. The idea is that acid, salt and time slowly wear pathogens down. It works, but not perfectly. An FDA study of raw milk cheddar found that E. coli O157:H7 numbers grew during cheesemaking and then fell during the 60 days of aging, as the International Dairy Foods Association summarized. The FDA’s concern was that aging alone might not remove every pathogen, especially if milk starts out heavily contaminated.
So the 60-day rule is one safeguard, not a guarantee. In both recalls, the cheese was a raw milk cheddar, a style that meets the aging rule. That’s exactly why the safeguards that come before aging matter so much.
How Small Creameries Can Lower the Risk
Raw milk cheesemakers have no single kill step, so they stack several smaller hurdles. None is complicated, and most of them are habits.
Start at the animal. A healthy herd, clean bedding and careful teat prep before milking cut the chance of manure reaching the milk. Cool the milk fast and use it fresh. Then make sure the cheese itself fights back. A lively starter culture that drops the pH on schedule creates an environment where STEC struggles to grow. Log your pH and temperatures for every batch, so a slow make gets flagged before it turns into a problem.
Next comes testing. Many careful makers test raw milk and finished cheese and hold each lot until results come back. That approach is often called “test and hold.” It costs time and money, but it’s how a problem gets caught in the cold room instead of in a customer’s kitchen.
Finally, write it all down. Under the Food Safety Modernization Act, many cheese plants must keep a written food safety plan built on a hazard analysis. Even very small plants that qualify for lighter rules gain from having one. Penn State Extension offers free tools made for small and raw milk cheese plants, including a blank plan template and a worked example for raw milk Gouda. Clear lot codes and a practiced recall plan belong in that file too. Family Farmstead’s recall was limited to a single lot, which is exactly what clear lot coding makes possible.
Why This Matters to Cheese Lovers and Makers Alike
Recalls like these can make raw milk cheese look riskier than it is. Most raw milk cheese is made safely, and a recall caught by testing, like Family Farmstead’s, is a sign the system is working. The more useful lesson is that safety is a practice, not a label. For makers, that means stacking hurdles, testing and keeping records. For buyers, it means choosing makers who are open about how they work. When you shop, it’s fair to ask a cheesemonger whether a raw milk cheese comes from a maker that tests every lot. Shipping adds its own risks, which we cover in our guide to shipping cheese across state lines.
Are you a small creamery working on your food safety plan or your sales channels? Tell us about your cheese. We’re building a marketplace that puts careful makers in front of the buyers who value them.
