Texas is one of the many states where sales of raw milk are legal. However, unlike some states, Texas does not permit raw milk to be sold off the farm where it’s produced.

In other words, you can not buy raw milk at a farmer’s market or in a retail store. I am lucky enough to live a few miles down the road from a raw milk dairy, so I can drive up to the farm store and pick up milk once a week without any hassle. Unfortunately, many other Texas raw milk drinkers aren’t so lucky.

Some consumers who live quite far from the farms that produce their milk have taken to arranging a sort of driving/delivery system where a group representative buys the milk at the farm and delivers it to drop points in various locations where participants reimburse the driver. Or buyers place orders “at the farm” over the phone or online, but the farm delivers the milk to them. Arguably, these practices are illegal, a mere play on words to mask a violation of the spirit of the law while still adhering to its letter.

Last week, the state of Texas actually cracked down on one such dairy farm, forcing it to dump 700 gallons of perfectly good milk and temporarily suspending the dairy’s raw milk license.