| Farm Name | Aurora Organic Dairy (High Meadow) | |
| Rating | (0) | |
| Location | Boulder, CO | |
| Products | Largest conventional/organic factory-farm operator. Largest Private label manufacturer. | |
| Market Area | Nationwide | |
| Web Site | http://www.auroraorganic.com | |
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Aurora Organic Dairy Started by two of the founders of Horizon, this corporation owns factory-scale dairy farms, milking thousands of cows each, in Colorado and Texas and is reportedly building or converting, to organic production, additional large farms in Colorado and Georgia. With the exception of butter, marketed at Costco under the High Meadow label, their milk is either sold wholesale or packaged for private-label/store-brand customers. In addition to Costco, they supply other national chains such as Safeway, Wild Oats, and Woodstock Farms (a label owned by the largest distributor of organic food: United Natural Food International or UNFI). In August 2007, Aurora was sanctioned and placed on probation by the United States Department of Agriculture after the agency's investigators found numerous willful violations of organic standards. The corporation did not respond to either of two letters requesting their participation in the study. |
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| Criteria | Points | Comments |
| Ownership Structure | 0 | No answer |
| Milk Supply | 0 | No answer |
| Disclosure of Information for Verification | 0 | No answer |
| Certifier farms | 0 | No answer |
| Certifier processing | 0 | No answer |
| Cows on pasture time/acreage provided | 0 | No answer |
| Health and longevity of cows | 0 | No answer |
| Replacement animals only from organic farms | 0 | No answer |
| Antibiotics used on young cattle | 0 | No answer |
| Reproductive hormones used | 0 | No answer |
| Farm support oversight | 0 | No answer |
| Outside dairy ingredients purchased | 0 | No answer |
| TOTAL SCORE | 0 | ZERO COWS (Ethically Deficient) Most produce or purchase factory farm milk. No zero cow producers/brands were open enough to participate in this study. |