Amid an outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu, over 500 California dairy farms have been quarantined after they tested positive for the virus. But the owners of Raw Farm — a favorite of wellness influencers and even Gwyneth Paltrow — are particularly unhappy about it.
In a Dec. 3 statement, the California Department of Public Health said it had halted the distribution of products from the brand, best known as a producer of unpasteurised or “raw” milk (its products are sold at upscale LA grocer Erewhon for $20 a jug) after bird flu was found in its unpasteurised milk at storage and bottling facilities and on retail shelves. The next day, Raw Farm hit back: “There are no illnesses associated with H5N1 in our products, but rather this is a political issue. There are no food safety issues with our products or consumer safety,” read a statement from the company, posted on Instagram. The brand tagged president-elect Donald Trump and his nominated secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., asking for a “helping hand” to fight what they called a “raw milk destruction path.”
In a call with The Business of Beauty, Raw Farm owner Mark McAfee said that raw milk with bird flu is still safe to drink. This claim contradicts a November research note from The Centers for Disease Control that stated H5N1 could remain infectious for over four days in unpasteurised milk up to 63 degrees Celsius (145.4 degrees Fahrenheit).
This is not the typical response that dairy farmers have taken to bird flu precautions. But the raw milk world is far from typical. Raw Farm’s owners’ defiant attitude reflects a unique zeal among raw milk devotees who have little belief in the risks of H5N1 and a lot of animosity toward government safety regulations of unpasteurised dairy. These warnings have also not fazed a certain set of wellness influencers, who have become some of raw milk’s biggest advocates as they help turn what was once a fringe movement into an increasingly mainstream wellness trend.
Raw milk has been popping up in a growing number of upscale shops and influencers’ feeds. Earlier this year, Paltrow said on the popular “Skinny Confidential” podcast that she puts Raw Farm cream in her coffee every morning. Influencers laud raw milk’s supposed health benefits, claiming it’s safe for those who are lactose intolerant, can boost gut health and immunity, improve skin and help with weight loss. At Erewhon, a $19 pink concoction called the “Raw Farms Strawberry Smoothie” with organic strawberries, protein powder, colostrum and Raw Farm raw kefir (a fermented dairy drink) is on the menu alongside viral favourites like Hailey Bieber’s Strawberry Glaze Skin Smoothie.
Before bird flu began infecting dairy cows and workers across the US, Dr. Meghan Davis, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said consuming raw milk was more of a matter of individual risk due to the potential inclusion of harmful bacteria. But H5N1 — which has had a global death rate of over 50 percent over the past two decades — has changed that calculation. While humans are not among the mammals documented to be transmitting the virus to one another, more people exposed means more chances the virus could mutate into something passed human-to-human.
“Milk is actually the most infectious thing that comes out of an infected cow,” said Davis. “Now, I don’t even think that farmers who farm dairy cows should be drinking raw milk from their dairy cows.”
Raw milk’s popularity reflects a uniquely American concept of wellness driven by mistrust in the medical system and ideas of self-sufficiency. McAfee says his brand saw a surge of interest at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, and has seen 50 percent year-on-year sales growth every year since then. The growth is a sign of the wellness industry’s rising ability to capitalise on consumers’ frustration with the quality of mainstream medical care and distrust of scientific institutions and authorities. With the backing of influencers who have the trust of millions of followers, wellness brands are less beholden than ever to scientific claims around product safety.
Leaving Plant-Based Behind
Raw milk’s moment in the spotlight has been building over the past year, as a contingent of wellness influencers who once downed green juice have turned to drinking raw milk, eating raw liver and putting tallow on their face in the name of health and beauty benefits.
Beyond Paltrow and Kennedy, who has also been a vocal proponent of raw milk, “Skinny Confidential” host Lauryn Bosstick, a beauty and wellness influencer with 1.7 million Instagram followers, “tradwife” influencer Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm, actress Tori Spelling, Danica Patrick and Bethany Joy McDaniel, the founder of tallow-based skincare brand Primally Pure, are all among its public supporters.
Bosstick claims on her podcast that it helped her lose 60 pounds. She has interviewed fellow unpasteurised beverage lovers like Yovana Mendoza Ayres, a formerly vegan influencer with one million Instagram followers who now promotes her practice of drinking a raw milk and liver “pregnancy smoothie” (the FDA says not to drink raw milk while pregnant due to miscarriage risk) and health influencer Paul Saladino, who has teamed up with Raw Farm and Erewhon to create a smoothie with Raw Farm milk and his supplements containing uncooked liver, heart, pancreas and kidney.
Beauty has also been a growing part of the raw milk conversation: Neeleman has been among influencers promoting claims about raw milk’s beauty benefits, telling People that her skin improved after drinking it.
Simultaneously, homesteader-type influencers like Neeleman are romanticising raw milk as part of a traditionalist fantasy, evoking visions of women hand-milking cows in their aprons while rearing large broods of children. City-dwelling influencers have been enchanted: Liz Seibert, a New York-based model with over one million TikTok followers, posted a video earlier this year about buying raw milk from “a wholesome Amish farm,” but deleted it after backlash.
With nearly 20 million followers across Instagram and TikTok and a farm-themed e-commerce shop, Neeleman has documented in detail her process of producing raw milk for her family. The farm is gearing up for commercial dairy production after buying $400,000 in milking equipment, according to a spokesperson for Ballerina Farm. Neeleman announced twice this year on Instagram that the brand would be selling raw milk, sharing her vintage-style glass bottle and label design in July. (A spokesperson said that it currently does not sell raw milk and did not provide a launch date. The company plans to start selling pasteurised butter in 2025.)
Ballerina Farm has also been in touch with Raw Farm, according to McAfee, who said that his daughter, who handles Raw Farm’s marketing, “works with Ballerina Farm all the time.” Ballerina Farm’s spokesperson said that Ballerina Farm has never worked with Raw Farm.
The raw milk fad operates as the beauty and wellness equivalent of “cowboycore” fashion, which some online have said was a harbinger of Trump’s reelection. It also shows how willing a certain segment of wellness customers is to trust brands and influencers over food safety authorities, even in the face of a potentially deadly illness. Raw milk advocates’ devotion to the product makes clear how much consumers tie wellness practices into their identities and political affiliations.
“Influencers know the truth. When they hear the FDA slamming raw milk and saying all these terrible things, they’ll say things like, ‘If the FDA says to do it, we better do the opposite.’ That’s how much trust has been lost from the FDA, CDC and NIH,” said McAfee.
An All-American Wellness Philosophy
Unlike spirulina or matcha, raw milk is a wellness trend that has become intertwined with conservative politics thanks in large part to its adherents’ emphasis on deregulation and alternative health claims. Politicians have joined influencers in hyping up raw milk, such as Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, while Kennedy visited Raw Farm earlier this year and endorsed its deregulation. McAfee claims Kennedy has encouraged him to apply for an advisor position at the Department of Health and Human Services.
The politicisation is spurring much more emotional reactions from customers than other food product recalls, such as an August 2024 recall of several almond milk brands over listeria. Raw Farm’s customers have been “very upset” by the news of the quarantine, said McAfee, as the brand has been reposting a wide range of angry customer comments stating that they will continue to drink the raw milk in their fridge, including batches implicated in the positive bird flu tests.
It’s yet to be seen if bird flu in the milk is a bridge too far for some raw milk-drinking influencers, who have been silent about their favorite unpasteurised beverage since the news broke. But Raw Farm is “going to be coming out with a new wave of information this next few days” on social media, said McAfee, who did not say whether this would include influencer statements.
“You don’t want to react too early and say things that are not accurate,” he said.
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