Darwin’s Dairy Ltd fined £6,000 for hygiene offences

Barnsley Magistrates Court heard how the local Environmental Health Team had received reports of several E-coli cases in November 2019, which sparked an investigation of the dairy.

Since November 2019, the Environmental Health team carried out testing of both the milk and the processing environment and continued to work with the business to help them comply with food hygiene and safety legislation. However, it said the company's lack of available records and failure provide reasonable due diligence, resulted in legal proceedings.   

Charges against the dairy ​

Charges included a failure to carry out effective monitoring at the critical control point of pasteurisation of raw milk, failure to verify that the HACCP system was working effectively and failure to establish critical limits at critical control points.

NP and DJ Darwin Ltd, trading as Darwin's Dairy, pleaded guilty to the charges at a virtual Magistrates Court Hearing on Thursday 17 June 2021 and was sentenced to a £6,000 fine, £170 victim surcharge and £1,000 costs.

Keeping the public safe​

Julia Burrows, Director for Public Health, said: “We have worked with Darwin's Dairy and Public Health England since 2019 to try and improve processes and ensure legislation was being followed. However, the health of our residents is of the highest importance, and we must do all we can to keep people safe. ​

“We continue to work with businesses to help them comply with food safety laws. This helps keep Barnsley residents, employees and visitors safe from harm.”​

Meanwhile, last month, The Quadram Institute secured funding for advanced research into safety and microbiology,​​ as the European Food Safety Authority flagged titanium dioxide as unsafe for human consumption.