Breaking free from the chains of the past Where
truth moves faster than a Holstein calf No law
waiting on some printed page We're charting new
ground in the digital age From genomic codes
to robot facts We cut through the noise, no hold
them back not your daddy's dairy news tonight
we're sparking Welcome back to the Bullvine podcast,
the only show cutting through the dairy industry
noise to get you the insights that actually matter
for your operation. And today we are jumping
into a massive deep dive on a feature piece from
the Bullvine called the traceability gap, dairy
welfare scandals and brand risk. Yeah, it's a
heavy one today. We talk a lot about milk checks
on this show, usually arguing about feed costs,
component pricing or. export markets. But today
we're talking about how a single scandal two
states away could wipe out your entire profit
margin overnight. Right. It sounds dramatic.
I know. Farmers hate drama. You just want to
milk cows and pay the bills. But we are looking
at a situation unfolding right now in New Mexico
that puts a literal price tag on your farm's
reputation. A massive price tag. Yeah. We are
talking about a $494 ,000 risk for a standard
1 ,000 cow herd. And while I want to emphasize
that that is not hypothetical money, that isn't
some potential market upside that you might capture
if the stars align. That is your premium check.
That's the difference between buying a new tractor
and literally selling the farm. Exactly. Honestly,
looking at the timeline and the details in this
source material, it's the kind of thing that
makes you want to... Check your own fences, check
your own employee protocols, and then probably
call your lawyer just to be safe. For sure. So
today we are doing a deep dive into the Woodcrest
Dairy Investigation in Roswell, New Mexico. We're
going to unpack the resulting fallout for Fairlife
and Select Milk producers, and we are going to
expose what we're calling the traceability gap.
The traceability gap. I like that term. It fits
perfectly. Right. It's this invisible crack in
the foundation that threatens every single farmer
chasing a brand premium right now. It's a total
mess. It really is. Well, let's set the context
before we get into the nitty gritty. We are looking
at a massive welfare scandal that has hit Woodcrest
Dairy down in Roswell. Now, before we go one
inch further, I have to make a very, very important
clarification for everyone listening. Oh, yeah.
The name. Yes, the name. We have a lot of genetics
nerds in our audience. When we say Woodcrest
Dairy, we are not talking about the legendary
Woodcrest operation up in New York. Right. We
are definitely not talking about the home of
Woodcrest King Doc. Do not go dumping your semen
tank. Do not panic sell your embryos. This is
a completely separate, totally unrelated operation
in the Southwest. No relation at all. Thank you
for clarifying that. So we are in Roswell, New
Mexico. Allegations of severe animal abuse were
recorded between December 2024 and March 2025.
And the details are, they're rough. They are.
We are talking about workers striking cows with
shovels, using heavy metal wrenches as weapons,
forcing metal rods down throats, dragging newborn
calves. The undercover footage was released publicly
by ARM, the Animal Recovery Mission, and KOB
TV just a few days ago on February 22, 2026.
And look. Anyone who has been in the dairy industry
for more than five minutes knows about ARM. They
don't just, you know, fly a drone over the property
and leave. They don't just take a blurry photo
from the public road. No, they don't. They look
for maximum damage. They embed themselves. That's
right. They apply for jobs. They get hired. And
usually the footage is incredibly hard to watch.
I haven't watched every single second of this
new release because, frankly, it makes me sick
as a farmer. But the descriptions alone, shovels
and wrenches, that's not farming. That's criminal.
It is entirely criminal. And when that hits the
evening news or hits social media feeds, consumers
don't see one bad apple. They just see dairy
farming. They see all of us. And the stakes here
go way, way beyond the PR nightmare. It's a financial
landmine for the producers. As we mentioned,
the core threat here is the loss of brand premiums.
Which, if you're in New Mexico or West Texas...
is basically the whole ballgame. Yeah. If you
are milking cows in that region, you know the
struggle intimately. The basis is terrible. Yeah,
the hauling costs alone. The hauling costs, you're
far from the major population centers. You need
that premium just to survive. Exactly. But here
is where the controversy gets really sticky in
the source material. Fairlife says Woodcrest
wasn't a supplier during the time in question,
but ARM says we saw the trucks. They claim they
saw Ruan trucking pickups going straight from
Woodcrest to the Coca -Cola bottling operations
in Dexter. And then there's the issue of the
cows themselves, which is fascinating. Right.
Roughly 2 ,000 cows vanished from Woodcrest into
the Select Milk network right before the video
dropped. That is the part that really caught
my eye. Yeah, that smells like a cover -up. Or
at least a very well -timed chill game. You don't
just move 2 ,000 head of cattle quietly unless
you know a storm is coming. Let's unpack that
because that is our first major segment of this
deep dive, the ghost cows. This is problem identification
number one for any farmer watching this supply
chain. So walk us through the exact timeline
because in these situations, the timing tells
you everything you need to know about who knew
what and when. Okay, here is the timeline straight
from the investigation. ARM hires an operative.
This person gets hired at Woodcrest as a milker,
then actually gets promoted to the birthing and
medical units. So they have full access? Full
access. They are inside Woodcrest from December
2024 to March 2025. They document all of this
abuse. Then in May 2025, ARM presents these findings
to six different government agencies. Six agencies.
Yeah. The local sheriff, the New Mexico Livestock
Board, the FDA, the USDA. Everybody. So the authority
is definitively new in May 2025. Correct. And
let's be real about how this industry works.
News travels faster than a loose heifer. If the
sheriff knows and the livestock board knows,
the co -op field reps usually hear the whispers.
But the public didn't know until February 2026.
That is a nine -month gap. That is a lifetime
in the dairy business. You can raise a whole
crop in that time. Right. And in that nine -month
window, between the formal investigation starting
and the undercover video dropping on the news,
something massive happens. KOB TV's investigation
traces roughly 2 ,000 cows moving from Woodcrest
in Roswell to Westland Dairy in Clovis, New Mexico.
Westland Dairy. Now that name rings a very loud
bell. It should. Westland is owned by Harry DeWitt.
He's the CEO of Blue Sky Farms. He's a massive
player in the region. But crucially for this
specific story, he is the treasurer of Select
Milk Producers. Okay, let's just pause right
there and let that sink in for a second. Select
Milk Producers is the co -op that helped launch
Fairlife. They are the absolute backbone of that
supply chain. Yes, they are. They're the ones
promising the consumer extraordinary care. And
the treasurer of that co -op buys the cows. from
the exact farm that is about to be exposed for
horrific abuse. That is the fact pattern established
by the investigation. Now, to be fair, and we
have to cover our legal basis here, just reporting
what the sources say, DeWitt is not named as
a defendant in the federal welfare lawsuit. There
is no public evidence indicating he knew about
the pending ARM investigation at the specific
moment of the transaction. Sure, sure. Plausible
deniability is a beautiful thing in the corporate
world. But look at this from a practical farmer's
perspective. Moving 2 ,000 cows is standard business?
Yes. Entire herds get sold. All the time. But
moving 2 ,000 head implies, what, about 50 cattle
pots? Yeah. That is a massive logistical operation.
You don't just do that on a whim on a Tuesday
afternoon. No, you absolutely don't. And to move
them from a farm that is about to get nuked by
a national welfare scandal, moving them to a
facility owned by a board member of the co -op
that processes the high premium milk, that raises
serious eyebrows. Yeah. If I saw my neighbor
doing that. I'd have some major questions about
what they knew. It certainly does raise questions,
and the New Mexico Livestock Board records show
that by early summer 2025, Woodcrest's pens were
completely empty. The remaining animals were
set to be sold. Basically, the farm dissolved
into thin air. So the farm is gone. The physical
entity known as Woodcrest effectively ceases
to exist. The cows are sitting over at Westland.
But the milk is where? That is the million -dollar
question, or rather the $494 ,000 question. This
brings us to the shell game concept. If the cows
move to a new barn within the same exact co -op,
is the milk suddenly clean? That's what I struggle
with from a common -sense standpoint. If I have
a cow that was allegedly abused on Farm A on
Monday, and I load her onto a trailer and truck
her to Farm B on Tuesday, and she gets milked
on Wednesday, is that milk distinct? Does the
consumer paying six bucks a bottle care that
the GPS coordinates of the milking parlor changed?
The industry seems to think so, or at least the
supply chain relies on the fact that no one can
technically prove otherwise. And this leads us
directly into our second segment, the industry
reality check. We really need to talk about the
traceability gap. This is the part of the article
that scares me the most. Because we all like
to think we have great records on our farms.
We have RFID tags. We have DHIA records. We have
herd management software that tracks every time
a cow sneezes. Right. We know her sire, her dam,
her daily milk production, her fat and protein
components. We track everything. We track cows.
We do not track milk. That is the fundamental
disconnect we are exposing here. New Mexico can
track every single cow that left Woodcrest. The
livestock board has the literal paper trail.
They know exactly where those 2 ,000 animals
went. Down to the ear tag. Exactly. But once
the milk leaves your bulk tank and hits the co
-op pool, the identity is entirely washed. It's
like pouring a bucket of water into a swimming
pool. Once it's in there, you can't get your
specific bucket of water back out. It's just
pool water now. That's a great analogy. And this
is exactly where the conflict between Fairlife
and ARM exists. Fairlife and Coca -Cola issued
a very strong statement saying, Woodcrest was
not a supplier in 2024 and 2025. Full stop. Which
sounds definitive. If you're a consumer reading
that, it sounds like they checked the accounting
books and said, nope, no checks written to Woodcrest
Dairy. But ARM says Woodcrest was tied to Coca
-Cola's Dexter bottling operations via Ruan trucking
pickups. They say they physically saw the trucks
loading milk at the farm and driving directly
to the plant. So corporate says trust us, but
they literally have no paperwork to prove where
the milk came from once it's pooled. Well, they
might have paperwork saying we didn't. buy directly
from the legal entity known as Woodcrest. But
because of the pooling system, if Woodcrest Milk
went into a select milk producer silo and then
select milk producers send a tanker to the bottling
plant, well, you see the issue. It's a gap, a
massive gaping hole in the logic. And it is a
regulatory loophole, too, which is wild when
you dig into it. The FDA's FSMA food traceability
rule, which everyone in the food industry was
freaking out about, took effect on January 20th,
2026, just last month. Right. The new traceability
mandate. But it covers high risk foods. Stuff
like romaine lettuce, cut fruit, soft cheeses,
the stuff that gives people E. coli outbreaks.
Right. Fluid milk is exempt. It is simply not
on the food traceability list. Why is that? just
because of pasteurization? Essentially, yes.
The Pasteurized Milk Ordinance, the PMO, addresses
the safety side. It kills the bacteria. So from
a will -this -product -physically -harm -you
perspective, the system works brilliantly. But
the system was designed for food safety. It was
not designed for brand integrity. Well, that
makes total sense. It wasn't designed to answer
the question, did the cow that made this milk
get hit with a shovel? So we basically have a
21st century marketing promise. We are out here
selling extraordinary care, fair life, grass
fed, animal welfare approved, whatever the label
is. But we are running it on a 20th century supply
chain infrastructure. We are promising Porsche
performance with a mild tea engine under the
hood. Precisely. The Innovation Center for U
.S. Dairy tracks processor lots for product recalls.
If there is a piece of plastic in the bottle,
they can tell you which bottling plant it came
from and on what day. But they cannot verify
farm origin once it is pooled into those massive
silos. So this reliance on voluntary self -reporting
leaves the door wide open for massive liability.
If a Fairlife bottle tests clean for safety,
Great. But nobody knows whose cows actually produced
it. And if you can't prove it wasn't the abused
cows, then in the court of public opinion and
potentially in a federal civil court, you lose.
And that loss has a very specific number attached
to it for the farmer. Which brings us to our
third segment. Follow the money. We call this
the premium cliff. Let's do the math on this.
Because I think a lot of guys out there hear
brand risk and think, oh, maybe a MyMilk check.
drops a dime per hundredweight. Or maybe I lose
my quality bonus for a month until the news cycle
moves on. It is not a dime, and it's not a one
-month penalty. Let's look at the breakdown from
the analysis. Brand premiums, like what you get
for supplying Fairlife or similar high -welfare,
high -protein -value -added labels, typically
run between $1 .50 and $2 .50 per hundredweight.
And if you are farming in New Mexico, that premium
is critical. It is life support. The New Mexico
base price is consistently about $2 per hundredweight
below the national average. Yeah, the basis down
there is just brutal. Hauling costs, location,
water issues. You are already starting in a hole
before you even turn on the milking parlor. You're
fighting a headwind every single day just to
get to zero. So let's run the numbers on a 1
,000 cow herd, producing the state average of
about 24 ,717 pounds per cow per year. A $2 premium
is exactly $494 ,340 per year. Half a million
dollars. Half a million dollars. That is the
premium alone. In New Mexico, that premium isn't
bonus money. That isn't buy a new boat money
or go on vacation money. That is the only margin
they have. If you lose that $2, you are essentially
milking cows for the privilege of losing money
every day. Let's scale it for different operations.
If you have 500 cows, that loss is $247 ,000.
That's a new tractor, gone, just drove it straight
off a cliff. If you have 2 ,500 cows, which is
a very common size in that specific region, you
are looking at a loss of $1 .2 million. That
is your entire operating margin. And the really
scary part is, if a scandal hits the supply chain
and consumer trust tanks, the brand premium evaporates
first. The base price remains, sure, but you
can't survive on the base price in that market.
We have an article on The Bullvine titled Exposing
Dairy's Biggest Lie. Management can't save you.
This is exactly what we mean. I read that piece.
It's spot on. You can be the absolute best manager
in the world. You can have your somatic cell
count down to practically nothing. You can have
your reproductive program dialed in perfectly.
But if you lose a $2 premium because of a structural
failure in your co -op, you cannot manage your
way out of that hole. You can't efficiency your
way out of a half million dollar cut. It's mathematically
impossible. Unless you figure out how to feed
your cows thin air, you are done. Now, let's
look at the entity standing right in the middle
of this storm. Select milk producers. This is
our fourth segment, case studies. or what I'm
calling select milk's double trouble. Yeah, if
you are a select member right now, you have to
be asking some really hard questions at the next
district meeting because they are fighting a
war on two fronts in the exact same federal district
court. Front number one is the welfare issue,
the Woodcrest and Fairlife class action suit
in the Central District of California. We know
Fairlife settled a very similar suit back in
2022 for $21 million regarding their extraordinary
care marketing claims. $21 million. That's a
lot of milk checks. And remember, that settlement
didn't even include an admission of guilt. That
was just the cost to make the lawsuit go away.
It is. But front number two might be even more
aggravating for the average farmer trying to
make a living. This is the antitrust case. Athart
Dairy Farms LLC versus DFA and Select Milk. I've
been following this one closely. This is the
big price fixing allegation. Correct. The allegation
in the source material is that they conspired
to suppress milk prices in the Southwest from
January 2015 all the way to June 2025. Basically,
the claim is that they used the Greater Southwest
Agency, which is a joint marketing entity, to
artificially hold down farmer pay. Basically
saying, we won't bid on your milk if you don't
bid on mine. It completely destroys competition
in the region. And they settled. Preliminary
approval for the settlement came in summer 2025.
$34 .4 million total, $9 .9 million from Select,
and $24 .5 million from DFA. And of course, no
admission of liability, right? Standard procedure,
no admission. But look at the practical result.
The Greater Southwest Agency was dissolved. Wait,
so let me get this straight. My co -op... is
paying millions of dollars to settle price -fixing
claims money that allegedly came out of my pocket
in the first place by suppressing my milk price,
and at the exact same time, they are dealing
with animal abuse allegations that threaten my
brand premium. That is the reality outlined in
the documents. And let's compare the actual value
here for the producer. The antitrust settlement
covers about 8 ,000 producers. If you do the
math on that 34 million, after the lawyers take
their cut, That nets a farmer about $4 ,300.
It's a one -time payment. $4 ,300. That buys
what? A couple pallets of calf milk replacer?
Maybe a used pickup truck if you're really lucky
and it has 200 ,000 miles on it? Compare that
to the welfare scandal risk. $494 ,000 per year.
The priorities seem completely backwards. The
co -op is fighting to settle a past wrong for
pennies on the dollar, while a structural risk
that could cost members millions is blowing up
in real time. It really makes you wonder about
governance. Who is steering the ship? If you
are spending all your executive time fighting
antitrust lawyers, are you actually watching
the gates to make sure a guy like the Woodcrest
operator isn't torching the brand reputation?
It brings us to the corporate defense mechanisms.
Fair life claims zero tolerance for abuse. Select
milk claims the highest standards in the industry.
Words. They're just words on a page. I see those
banners at every single trade show I go to. World
-class care. Highest standards. Quality assured.
They are words. And our analysis argues that
without the data, without actual traceability,
they are empty phrases. And this leads to our
future implications and contrarian takes segment.
Lay it on me. I'm ready for the hot take. The
brand contamination clause, or rather, the reality
of brand contamination, even if it's not strictly
written in your contract. You might be the best
farmer in the world. Your cows might be living
in absolute luxury. You might know every single
one of them by name. But if your milk is pooled
with a woodcrest, you share the penalty. It's
guilt by association. And in a co -op... I mean,
that is built into the model. We share the profits.
We share the losses. But usually we think of
losses as, you know, the cheese market went down
or exports slowed. We don't think of losses as
my neighbor is a criminal and now nobody wants
to buy my milk. But that is the new reality of
consumer brands. If the consumer cannot distinguish
your good milk from the bad milk, all milk in
that bottle is considered bad milk. And it's
unfair. It is incredibly unfair to the 98 guys
in the co -op doing everything exactly right.
But fairness doesn't pay the feed bills. No,
it doesn't. And this leads to the inevitable
shift in the industry. If the dairy industry
doesn't fix the traceability gap voluntarily,
trial lawyers absolutely will. Oh, absolutely
they will. They smell blood in the water. They
know the co -ops have deep pockets and terrible
tracking. We are seeing this already. The amended
complaints in the Fairlife case are specifically
targeting the marketing claims. They are saying
you promised extraordinary care. You cannot mathematically
prove extraordinary care because you cannot trace
the fluid milk back to the specific farm. Therefore,
you are lying to the consumer. And that is a
winning argument in court. or at the very least,
an incredibly expensive one to defend against.
If we look north, we look at Canada's dairy trace
program. They track animals from birth to disposal.
It is a mandatory national program. The U .S.
is lagging so far behind on this. We love our
independence here. We hate the government knowing
where our cows are. I get it. I don't want the
government on my farm either. But the tradeoff
is we are flying blind when it comes to defending
our premium products. Reference our recent article,
Transform Your Dairy Before Consolidation Decides
For You. This is exactly that scenario playing
out. If you don't build the system yourself,
the system will be imposed on you, likely by
a federal court order or a panicked processor.
It won't be the USDA making the rule. It will
be Walmart or Coca -Cola or a judge. They will
just step in and say, if you can't trace it from
the parlor to the bottle, we won't buy it. Boom.
Done. So we've painted a pretty grim picture
today. We've got ghost cows moving in the night.
We've got a half million dollar premium risk
hanging over your head. And we've got co -ops
fighting legal battles on every front. It's heavy.
It's a lot to process. But we are the bullvine.
We don't just sit here and complain. We give
you a roadmap. So let's pivot to our actionable
insights. A farmer just finished milking. They're
driving to the feed store. The radio is on. What
are the three things they need to remember from
today? What do they actually need to do? All
right. Let's break it down into immediate, medium,
and long -term strategies. Start with this week.
What can I do today when I get back to the farm
office? Immediate action this week. Audit your
audit. Audit your audit. I like the sound of
that. Pick up the phone. Call your co -op representative.
Don't email them. Emails just get ignored or
forwarded to the legal department. Call them
on the phone. And ask three very specific questions.
Number one, who selects the third -party welfare
auditor? Is it the co -op picking their buddy
or is it truly an independent organization? That's
a key distinction. If you hire the guy grading
your test, you're always going to get an A. Exactly.
Number two, how often are these audits actually
conducted? Is it once every three years? Once
a year? Are they surprise audits or are they
scheduled weeks in advance? If they are scheduled,
they are a pageant. Everyone cleans up for the
pageant. You sweep the alleys. You hide the broken
equipment. They absolutely need to be surprise
audits to mean anything. And question number
three. Can I see the most recent audit summary
for every farm in my pool? Ooh. That last one
is the kicker. That's going to make some field
reps very uncomfortable. It is. They will probably
say no. They will say it's a privacy issue. But
if they won't answer, you are flying blind. You
have a right to know if your half million dollar
premium is being risked by the guy down the road
who still uses a wrench to move cows. Push for
that answer. Okay, I love that. Now, what about
the medium term, say the next three to six months?
Medium term strategy. Stress test your contracts.
Dig out your actual marketing agreement. Blow
the dust off it. You are looking for something
very specific in the fine print. Brand contamination
clauses. What does that look like in plain English?
You need to see if the contract specifies what
happens to your premium if another farm in your
pool is investigated. Most contracts probably
don't have this explicitly stated. Most don't.
Which means it's entirely open for interpretation,
and usually in corporate law, the interpretation
goes against the farmer. If that language isn't
there protecting you, you are carrying a massive
financial risk that you haven't priced into your
operation. Consult an ag attorney. Seriously.
Spend the $500 to get a professional legal opinion
on your exposure. That is money well spent. And
long -term. What are we looking at one to two
years out? Long -term positioning. Push for infrastructure.
This is the political play. You need to lobby
your co -op board for true farm -to -bottle traceability.
Look, it costs money. I know that. Nobody wants
another deduction on the bottom of the milk check.
We have enough deductions already. But look at
the math we just did today. Voluntary infrastructure
programs are cheaper than class action settlements.
And they are definitely cheaper than losing a
$2 brand premium forever. It's a simple trade
-off for your business model, traceability costs
versus litigation risk. Exactly. You can pay
a little bit now to build a software and tracking
system that proves you're clean, or you can pay
a whole lot later when the class action suit
settles and the brand dies. Think of it as insurance.
You buy fire insurance for the milking parlor.
You need brand insurance for the milk. Powerful
stuff. The Woodcrest situation is a warning shot
across the bow for the whole industry. The cows
are gone, the farm is closed, but the gap in
the system remains wide open. And until that
gap is closed, your premium is just a handshake
deal waiting to be broken by a bad actor. That
brings us to the end of this deep dive. The cows
are milked, the truth is out, and it's up to
you to check your contracts. Subscribe wherever
you get your podcasts. And seriously, go to www
.thebullvine .com. Read the full articles on
the American dairy heist and Locked from the
Inside. We go into even more detail on the legal
filings and the structural economics there. We'll
catch you tomorrow with another deep dive into
the dairy markets. Signing off from the Bullvine,
stay profitable. And stay safe out there.