HILLSBOROUGH - Maple View Farm has pulled its milk products from stores in six counties following tests showing levels of a cancer-causing agent slightly above federal standards.
Joe Reardon, director of the state Department of Agriculture's Food and Drug Protection Division, said that the carcinogen, called aflatoxin, is usually dangerous only when consumed in high amounts over a long time.
"We wouldn't anticipate any public health issues," he said.
The company on Thursday announced a recall of milk and whipping cream with a sell-by date of Aug. 25 and buttermilk with a sell-by date of Sept. 5. On Friday, as an extra precaution, it expanded its recall to include all sell-by dates for those products.
The company's ice cream, which was made from milk produced earlier, is not affected, said Roger Nutter, the dairy's plant manager.
Routine screening by the state Food and Drug Protection Division turned up levels of aflatoxin slightly higher than federal standards allow. The toxin is a byproduct of a mold that grows on corn, usually in periods of drought or heavy rain. When present in corn fed to animals, it makes its way into milk. In high amounts, Reardon said, it can cause cancer, liver damage or stillbirth in humans.
Nutter said the company typically buys its feed from a broker who ensures that it has been tested for aflatoxins, but switched to an Orange County farmer for its last purchase in an effort to support local farmers. Dairy workers believed that corn had been tested as well.
"It probably had not been," Nutter said.
Reardon said investigators are looking into where else the farmer, whose name has not yet been released, may have sold corn.
The cows are on new feed, Nutter said, but still have to go through three more milkings before the milk will be usable again.
The 10-year-old dairy will lose about 7,000 gallons of milk altogether, Nutter said, about 2 percent of its annual production.
"We're hoping that we're still going to be able to survive," Nutter said. "It's going to be a tremendous setback.
"We're a small company, but our customers have been very loyal to us over the years, and we hope that they will continue to be."
The farm, which also operates three stores that sell ice cream in Orange County, has not had any previous recalls.
Staff writer Lisa Hoppenjans can be reached at 932-2014 or lisa.hoppenjans@newsobserver.com.
ABOUT THE RECALL
The recalled products are:
The products are sold in Alamance, Chatham, Durham, Lee, Orange and Wake counties.
Customers can return these items to the store where they purchased them, or to the Maple View Farm Country Store at 6900 Rocky Ridge Road near Hillsborough.