The Animal Legal Defense Fund, an animal advocacy group, has filed suit against the Tillamook County Creamery Association, alleging it has misrepresented its products as being sourced from small-scale, humane farms. In truth, the suit charges, the majority of the company’s milk is sourced from an eastern Oregon factory farm. Tillamook has said the allegations are false.
The class action suit, filed Aug. 19, describes website and advertising campaigns, images, and slogans that allegedly misled consumers to believe that by purchasing Tillamook products, they were supporting small-scale, humane dairy farming. One such campaign in 2016 encouraged consumers to say “Goodbye Big Food” and opt for a Tillamook product as an alternative to mainstream dairy. “Tillamook has engaged in a deceptive marketing campaign to convince consumers that the dairy cows who provide milk for its products graze on pastures in Tillamook County,” the complaint reads.
In reality, the ALDF says, more than two-thirds of Tillamook’s milk is sourced from a single concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) in Boardman, Oregon, that houses more than 30,000 dairy cows. That farm is a “complex of cement-floored production facilities and barren dirt feedlots,” where cows are “milked by robotic carousels,” the complaint alleges.
Tillamook said in a statement that it “adamantly disagrees” with the allegations made in the ALDF lawsuit. “Tillamook takes great pride in being a farmer-owned and farmer-led co-op, and we only work with business partners that share our values and live up to our extremely high standards,” the statement reads. “The size of the farm does not dictate the quality of care.”
The ALDF says that Tillamook’s alleged misrepresentation is part of a broader trend. Shoppers are increasingly taking animal welfare into consideration when making purchases, the group says, and Tillamook is capitalizing on this shift in buying habits by claiming its products are being sourced from humane farms.
“Consumers care about animals. That’s why they are increasingly seeking out products that cause less animal suffering,” said Stephen Wells, executive director of the ALDF, in a press release. “Tillamook is exploiting consumers’ desire to treat animals better by misleading people about how its cows are kept. This violates the public’s trust and violates the law.”
The class action lawsuit will ultimately seek $200 for each Oregonian it says has been misled by Tillamook’s marketing campaigns, which could result in a multimillion-dollar payout by the company.
Oregon has seen extensive debate about large-scale dairy farming in the state in recent years. As FERN reported earlier this year, the failure of another mega-dairy in Boardman, Lost Valley Farm, sparked a conversation about issuing a moratorium on similar operations. The state’s dairy industry, which produced $500 million worth of milk in 2017, is a powerful political force, donating more than $1 million to state legislators in the past decade. Many residents are concerned that the expansion of the dairy industry would compromise the quality of drinking water and attract other large-scale factory farms to the state.