MPI is welcoming a fine against a raw milk seller in Horowhenua

Levin milk business MannaMilk has been fined 30-thousand dollars for illegally supplying raw milk.

New legislation came into effect in 2016, enforcing new rules on how farmers bottled, stored and distributed raw milk.

Farmers had to be signed up with MPI, something Mannamilk didn't do.

The company was caught through a nationwide sting operation, with an MPI officer posing as a customer.

New Zealand Food Safety deputy director general Vincent Arbuckle says the sentence sends a strong message to all dairy farmers involved in raw milk production.

He says raw milk is inherently much more of a food safety risk than milk that has been pasteurised, to kill potentially harmful bacteria