Raided Hawke's Bay raw milk supplier Lindsay Farm thanks supporters, considers legal options

Lindsay Farm's owners say they've been humbled by a "massive" show of support in the Hawke's Bay community, since being raided by the Ministry for Primary Industries and told to halt raw milk production.

One of New Zealand's largest raw milk producers and suppliers, the farm was one of several across New Zealand visited by MPI compliance staff with search warrants this week.

MPI said it had executed the search warrants on what it said were unregistered and "non-compliant" suppliers, following a year-long operation.

Lindsay Farm is a family-owned operation run by Paul and Christine Ashton, Christine's father Bryan Donovan, Mike Ashton, their eldest son, and Ange Brooks, their eldest daughter.

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In a statement released to Hawke's Bay Today, Brooks said "we would like to thank all of our partners for their love and support during this time and we are very humbled.

"The support is keeping us going as a business.

"We have 1700 partners who appreciate what we do as a family. This demonstrates to us that when people care about something they fight for it.

"These partners don't want to lose the right to access their own raw milk."

Any raw unpasteurised drinking milk from unregistered suppliers found at collection points was seized by MPI officers and disposed of.

Collection points are not permitted under MPI regulations.

Lindsay Farm said it was looking at crowdfunding to help with legal costs after the raid.

An MPI spokeswoman said all the farms they visited were non-compliant because they were not registered under the Regulated Control Scheme to sell raw unpasteurised milk.

"To be able to sell their product they need to be registered under the RCS.

"We can't say how long it will take them to register - they need to follow all the processes that registration requires and we don't know how long they may take to do that."

MPI said it could not comment further on potential outcomes of its raid, and subsequent investigation.