Ventura County Sheriff's Department

Healthy Family Farms - 6780 Wheeler Canyon Road, Santa Paula, CA

Date & Time: December 18, 2008 / 1:00 pm Unit(s) Responsible: Sheriff’s Agricultural Crimes Unit / California Department of Food and Agriculture Milk and Dairy Food Safety Branch

(A)rrestees Address Age
Sharon Ann Palmer Santa Paula, CA 48

During the first week of December 2008, the Sheriff’s Department’s Agricultural Crimes Unit identified a subject suspected of operating an unlicensed milk processing plant. After further investigation, it was confirmed that the processing plant was operating while unlicensed, and using potentially unpasteurized milk to produce various milk products, including goat cheese and yogurt. The milk products produced at the plant were being packaged under the “Healthy Family Farms” label and sold to the public at various farmer’s markets in Ventura, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles Counties.

On 12-18-2008, a detective from the Agricultural Crimes Unit and investigators from the California Department of Food and Agriculture Milk and Dairy Food Safety Branch, Ventura County Environmental Health Department, Ventura County Weights and Measures, and Ventura County Code Enforcement took part in an undercover operation focused on purchasing illegally produced, and potentially unsafe goat cheese being produced at the location and being sold at farmer’s markets.

Unpasteurized milk is raw milk that has not been heated enough to kill harmful bacteria including Listeria, Salmonella, E. Coli, Staphylococcus, and M. bovis (causes tuberculosis). Persons who become ill could suffer a miscarriage, illness to unborn babies, diarrhea, fever, stomach cramps, swollen neck glands, and blood stream infection.

Various containers of goat cheese and yogurt suspected of being produced using unpasteurized milk were purchased from the processing plant and a local farmer’s market during the operation. The food product containers purchased during the operation were seized by investigators from the California Department of Food and Agriculture and Ventura County Environmental Health Department, and submitted to the state laboratory for testing.

Sharon Palmer was arrested and charged with Food and Agricultural Code Sections 35283(a) – Processing Milk or Milk Products without Pasteurization, 35283(b) – and Processing for Resale Milk or Milk Products without a License. Palmer was booked into the Ventura County Pre-Trial Detention Facility. A background check of Palmer’s criminal history revealed a prior felony conviction for fraud.