HILLSBOROUGH -- Maple View Farm in central Orange County is recalling milk products distributed in six counties including Orange, Durham and Chatham, because the products possibly could contain excessive amounts of aflatoxin.
At the moment, the recall essentially affects just one day's worth of milk from the farm along Dairyland Road, said Bob Nutter, founder and partner in the farm.
Nutter said Thursday afternoon that more tests were scheduled for milk processed at the farm and that the results would determine whether any further recalls would be necessary.
The dairy voluntarily recalled milk products distributed in the three counties along with Alamance, Wake and Lee counties, the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services reported.
During routine sampling, the department's Food and Drug Protection Division detected levels of aflatoxin that exceeded federal limits.
"The levels we found were slightly above the legal limits, and we wouldn't expect any adverse effects from the single [day] consumption of this milk," said Joe Reardon, director of the Food and Drug Protection Division.
"We see this very seldom," Reardon said Thursday in an interview.
"However, in years where the corn crop has been stressed, there may be some aflatoxin in the corn that contributes to these types of issues.
That's really where it's coming from, and [the Nutters] have been just as cooperative as you would ever want anybody to be."
Department officials said aflatoxin, a potent carcinogen, is a byproduct of the mold Aspergillus flavus, which may affect grain and forage products consumed by livestock.
If ingested in huge amounts, it can cause stillbirths and cancer in livestock and humans, they said.
Maple View has informed retailers they should remove the recalled products from store shelves, and the farm is cooperating with the department's continuing investigation, said Reardon.
"There have been no complaints or reports of illness associated with these products," he said in a statement.
"However, we urge anyone who has purchased these products to return them to the place of purchase or the Maple View Farm Country Store at 6900 Rocky Ridge Road in Hillsborough."
The store actually is a little south of Hillsborough and west of Carrboro.
The products
The affected products were packaged in plastic pint containers, returnable glass quart containers and glass half-gallon containers, Reardon said. The container caps have a label with a stamped sell-by date.
The recalled products are:
Tests detected aflatoxin levels in those products in excess of 0.5 parts per billion, which is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration standard, the state agriculture department reported.
"We had some feed [corn] that had some aflatoxin in it," Nutter said. "We found out what the problem is, and we won't feed any more of it.
"It wasn't visible," he added. "The corn looked as good as any corn we've had."
Tests first identified the aflatoxin in the milk, then the feed was tested. Maple View currently has about 140 Holstein cows in its herd.
"Hopefully by [today] it will be out of the cows' system to where it will be OK," Nutter said. "We have pulled all the milk off the shelves in the store."