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The Animal Legal Defense Fund on Monday sued a Portland judge to order the Tillamook County Creamery Association to stop saying that its cheese, ice cream, butter and other products Tillamook brand dairy came from cows grazing on the green pastures of the region. Coast of Oregon.
According to the Animal Legal Defense Fund, this marketing is misleading: more milk for Tillamook brand products comes from cows on the other side of the state – including the larger "industrialized dairy farm" from the country, to Boardman, 230 km in the desert of east of Oregon, according to the lawsuit. The Threemile Canyon facility – with 32,000 dairy cows and a total of 70,000 cattle – is comprised of "Sterile Concrete Feedlots" and "Robotic Rides" that treat animals "permanently confined According to the combination.
"Boardman is flat, arid and often stuffy – nothing to do with Tillamook County," says the pursuit. "And the Boardman's mega-dairy is so big that it's visible from the space."
Within one month, the Animal Legal Defense Fund is considering amending its lawsuit in order to claim compensation of $ 200 for every Oregonian alleged to have been misled by Tillamook's marketing campaign, said Amanda Howell. fund lawyer. As Tillamook products are almost ubiquitous in state grocery stores, they could be hundreds of thousands of Oregon consumers, Howell said.
If the class action succeeds, it could be tens of millions of dollars for the company.
Tillamook issued a statement in response to the complaint, saying the Animal Legal Defense Fund "is anti-dairy and actively encourages people to cut all dairy products out of their diet."
"The Tillamook County Creamery Association categorically disagrees with the allegations made in the lawsuit and we will defend ourselves aggressively," reads the statement. "Tillamook is very proud to be a farmer-owned and farmer-owned cooperative, and we only work with business partners who share our values and meet our extremely high standards.
The statement goes on to state that 80 farming families in Tillamook County "own and effectively run the company" and that the milk supplied by Eastern Oregon is humanly high – just as milk comes from farms in the County of Tillamook who also provide milk for commercial purposes. Tillamook branded products.
"Our farmer owners and our suppliers take good care of their animals, not only because it's their livelihood, but because it's the right thing to do," reads the statement. .
The suit is brought on behalf of four Oregon Portland and elsewhere: Sonja Bohr, Tamara Barnes, Karen Foglesong and Mary Wood. The prosecution claims to have paid a premium for Tillamook products because it wanted to support small dairies based on pastures and it did not realize "the truth – the vast majority of milk from Tillamook products comes from a huge East Oregon farm where cows are never allowed to graze on grass. "
The lawsuit blames the company's "Goodbye Big Food" advertising campaign, launched in 2016, for showing "a backdrop of farmers in the foggy county of Tillamook, rising early to fall". occupy cows and agricultural tasks, "as well as images like a bottle-fed girl. a calf. The campaign says some of his Tillamook families belong to the fourth generation of farmers.
According to the lawsuit, Tillamook would have pulled about $ 800 million of revenue from its dairy products in 2017 and could reach more than $ 1 billion in sales in the near future.
Howell, the lawyer for the Animal Legal Defense Fund, said his organization wanted Tillamook to modify its advertising or stop using milk produced under the conditions of the large Boardman farm.
The complaint was filed at the Multnomah County District Court.
The Legal Legal Defense Fund is headquartered in California, and Portland lawyer David Sugerman has initiated the process as co-counsel.
Sugerman is known, among others, for 1.7 million Oregon who started receiving checks last month for a total of $ 185 each in a class action brought against the producer of BP oil for imposing a debit of 35 cents. card fees without notice at the pump. Oregon paid the 35 cents to ARCO service stations and their associated am / pm convenience stores.
– Aimee Green
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