Bryson Lipscomb remembers when he tasted his first glass of raw milk — unpasteurized and unhomogenized, unlike what’s for sale at grocery stores.
It was 2021, and he was working at a Campbell County dairy. COVID-19 was changing the world, and Lipscomb had left his old job and was seeking a better quality of life.
Until he started at the dairy, he had only drunk pasteurized skim milk.
“I had that first glass of Jersey cow’s milk — whole, just natural milk — and I was like, ‘You gotta be kidding me. This is incredible,’” Lipscomb said.
Just a few years later, raw milk would be the focus of a court case against him and his wife, Mackenzie, and would thrust their small family farm into a national conversation over food choice and public health.
The Lipscombs run Triple Oaks Farm PMA in Campbell County. The “PMA” stands for “private membership association,” a model under which products and services are offered only to members who pay to join the association, not the general public.
By joining the PMA, members gain access to the private association’s products, including raw milk from the dairy where Lipscomb previously worked and pork from Triple Oaks Farm’s pasture-raised pigs.
Virginia law prohibits the sale of raw milk for human consumption over concerns that it could contain dangerous germs that would make people sick. State law is aligned with federal guidelines, which say pasteurization — a process dating to the 1800s in which milk is heated to kill those germs — is essential to food safety.
Nonetheless, raw milk has its supporters, including consumers who prefer its taste because it hasn’t undergone pasteurization or homogenization, a process in which large fat globules are broken down to give the milk a more uniform consistency. Advocates argue that raw milk has health benefits and small farmers say it helps them compete with large-scale dairies that produce pasteurized milk.
Lipscomb emphasized that, under the PMA model, Triple Oaks has no retail sales to the public — instead, transactions within the PMA are between private individuals, constitutionally protected and not subject to the same government authority as the public sphere of commerce.
Lipscomb and other proponents of PMAs compare their operations to private social clubs or other membership-based organizations.
“A private membership association, it’s a First Amendment right,” Lipscomb said. “You of course have freedom of speech but you also have freedom to assemble and privately associate and privately contract.”
In July, Virginia State Health Commissioner Karen Shelton sought an injunction against Triple Oaks Farm PMA, saying in a court filing that the farm was illegally selling raw milk to the public and posed a “threat to public health.”
Shelton argued that the Lipscombs believed that their private membership association structure put them “beyond the scope of regulatory oversight and law enforcement.”
“This belief is erroneous and misguided,” she said in the filing.
In responses filed in Campbell County Circuit Court, the Lipscombs said their PMA was protected by the First and 14th Amendments, that its members haven’t been harmed and that their products “are made available to private members only in the private domain.”
In an interview, Lipscomb called Shelton’s case “blatantly wrong and out of line.”
“This summons was choosing to completely disregard private membership associations as a lawful thing, a lawful entity, and accusing us of unlawfully selling raw milk,” he said.
In September, Shelton dropped the case. Lipscomb isn’t sure why, but he thinks he likely benefited from political pressure and a public outcry of support.
The Virginia Department of Health referred a Cardinal News reporter to the Virginia Attorney General’s Office, which represented Shelton in the case. That office declined to comment.
Case highlights personal choice, public health
The Lipscombs’ farm is in the Campbell County community of Long Island, approximately a 40-minute drive from Lynchburg.
Bryson, 35, and Mackenzie Lipscomb, 33, weren’t always farmers. He was a U.S. Army Airborne veteran who worked in manufacturing before going to the dairy; she was a nurse.
For many years, Bryson Lipscomb said, he would simply go to the store to buy meat without thinking much about the details — cheapest price, highest weight, get the most for your money.
“I never thought about where the meat came from, where the animal was raised, what it ate, how it was treated,” Lipscomb said.
As COVID-19 impacted the economy and some stores experienced shortages of meat and other products, Mackenzie had the idea to raise a pig.
Despite their lack of experience, the Lipscombs had their land, and it seemed like a good idea, Bryson Lipscomb said.
He began teaching himself through podcasts and videos.
“Man, I really got sucked into it quickly and just seemed to love it and develop a passion for it very quickly,” he said.
They started with pigs and later added meat chickens.
Bryson Lipscomb went to work at the dairy, developing its herdshare program. Under a herdshare, members co-own animals and receive a share of their production.
The Lipscombs then developed their PMA at their home farm. To join, a member pays a $5 lifetime fee — some amount of money, even if it’s small, is necessary to make it official, Lipscomb said — and signs a contract.
Members can then get products from a store at the farm or pick them up from local businesses that offer their space for use as distribution sites. During a recent visit, a chalk sign at the farm store advertised offerings such as pork steaks for $13 per pound and raw milk mozzarella for $10.
Besides offering its products to members, the farm also holds members-only events featuring barbecue, mac and cheese and bacon smoked in a hand-built smokehouse.
Another benefit of a PMA, Lipscomb said, is that he can process bacon himself instead of paying for the services of a U.S. Department of Agriculture-certified facility.
Lipscomb declined to name the dairy that provides the PMA’s milk. After his own experience with the courts, he’s concerned that state officials might take similar action against that operation.
“I have to protect his business as much as I have to protect my business,” he said.
Lipscomb said that Triple Oaks Farm PMA today has about 400 members, and he estimated that about 1,500 gallons of raw milk move through it each month. The dairy supplies the milk, and the PMA handles logistics such as customer service and delivery.
Although a PMA model is different from selling retail, Lipscomb said he still collects sales tax and remits it to the state.
Running the PMA is a small operation. It’s just Bryson and Mackenzie Lipscomb, plus a part-time employee who works a day a week delivering milk to local distribution sites.
The raw milk is more expensive than milk at a grocery store. A gallon picked up from the farm costs $10, while a gallon collected from a distribution site costs $13, Lipscomb said.
Lipscomb said that Triple Oaks Farm members have told him that raw milk helped problems such as eczema and gut pain when pasteurized milk exacerbated them.
“I’m no doctor. I’m no scientist. I’m just a farmer. But I’m certainly led to believe that raw milk is a healthier option. It’s just a more pure, a more natural product,” he said.
When Shelton, the state health commissioner, sought the injunction against Triple Oaks Farm PMA, she said in a court filing that consuming raw milk can expose people to E. coli, listeria and salmonella. These bacteria can cause fever, nausea and diarrhea or more severe problems such as sepsis, a life-threatening condition.
Shelton’s position is supported by federal agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The FDA says that “numerous” scientific studies “clearly demonstrate the risk associated with drinking raw milk” and dispute health claims associated with it.
The CDC said that in late 2023 and early 2024, raw milk from a California farm was connected to 171 salmonella infections in five states.
Triple Oaks Farm PMA said in a court filing that its members “have not been harmed in any manner.”
For Lipscomb, regardless of people’s thoughts about raw milk’s health benefits or risks, the PMA is a matter of personal choice.
He sees government regulation around raw milk as “everything to do with control.”
“I think you should have the right to choose what you buy and where you buy it from,” Lipscomb said. “Especially if you sign a consent form, which is a contract. We’re not deceiving anyone here. We’re not tricking anyone into buying raw milk.”
Farm’s situation gains widespread attention
Shelton’s motion requesting an injunction in July followed a cease-and-desist letter from the Campbell County Health Department in late 2024.
Lipscomb said he ignored that letter because it said he sold products to the public and he maintained that only association members had access to the farm’s offerings.
In August, Shelton sent a subpoena to Meta, the parent company of Facebook, seeking more than a year and a half of posts, private messages, photos, videos and other data related to Triple Oaks Farm PMA’s Facebook page. It’s unclear whether Meta provided the data.
In early September, the Lipscombs filed a motion to dismiss the case.
The Lipscombs then went public about the case, posting on the farm’s Facebook page that they had been served court papers.
Their supporters included Facebook fans; Del. Eric Zehr, R-Campbell County; and figures in the “food freedom” movement such as Joel Salatin.
Salatin is a self-described “lunatic farmer” whose Polyface Farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley was featured in the documentary “Food Inc.” and the bestselling book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” Lipscomb said Salatin also buys piglets from Triple Oaks Farm PMA.
Salatin wrote on his blog that PMAs around the country are “being attacked by government regulators in the newest permutation of the freedom-of-food-choice battle.”
“We have freedom of choice in the bedroom, bathroom, and womb, but not in the kitchen,” he wrote.
A court date was set for Sept. 22. Salatin and Triple Oaks Farm PMA called for supporters to rally on the steps of the courthouse in Rustburg on the morning of the hearing.
The farm’s Facebook page has accrued about 40,000 followers, and a number of them pledged to be there.
The rally never materialized. About a week before the Lipscombs were due to appear in court, the state dropped the case.
Lipscomb would have preferred to go to court and secure an official victory. The state’s motion was for a nonsuit without prejudice, which means it could one day bring its claims before the court again.
“It’s not the ideal win, but it is a win,” Lipscomb said.
With their legal tangles behind them — for now, at least — the Lipscombs continue to offer their products, including raw milk, to the PMA’s members.
The farm has turned out to be an excellent place to raise their two young sons, Abraham and Noah, Bryson Lipscomb said.
The family’s dogs, Lucy and Geo, have recently been joined by a litter of kittens.
And the farm plans to expand soon by offering milk delivery in the Charlottesville area.
