Milk and Dairy Food Safety Branch (MDFS)

What We Do:

The Milk and Dairy Food Safety Branch (MDFS) is charged with the mission and responsibility of ensuring that California's milk, milk products, and products resembling milk products are safe and wholesome, meet microbial and compositional requirements and are properly labeled.

We inspect dairy farms and milk processing plants, and collect samples of milk and milk products to assure consumer safety. We also ensure that tests used to determine the basis of payment for milk are accurate; and evaluate dairy farms, milk plants, and laboratories for the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) for dairy products in interstate commerce.

California is the leading milk producing state in the nation producing over 38 billion pounds of milk in 2006. Milk produced on California dairy farms accounts for over 21% of the nation's total milk supply.

US FDA Center for Food Safety And Nutrition

• California IMS Plants (Plants involved in Interstate Commerce) by Plant Name. Lists Plant Name, City Plant number and product codes. Also indicates most recent inspection score.

Licensing Unit

• The Licensing Unit handles the issuing of licenses and permits pertaining to Milk Production and Processing. This includes all of the Dairy Farms and Processors in California which produce milk products or products resembling milk products. Some of the plant type include Frozen, Manufacturing, and Soft Serve Vendors. There are over 13,000 soft serve licenses issued by this unit. The unit may be contacted at (916) 900–5008.