The Pa. Dairymen’s Association is going to federal court over the ‘Farm Show Milkshake’ name

The Pennsylvania Dairymen’s Association may not be crying over spilled milk, but when it comes to their milkshakes, they’re taking it to federal court.

The long-standing central Pennsylvania dairy organization is suing a Cumberland County-based company selling competing “farm show milkshakes,” alleging that the group is misusing the Dairymen’s famed shake name and milking the benefits of their community reputation at the Pennsylvania Farm Show.

The lawsuit — filed this month in the U.S. District Court for Middle District of Pennsylvania — alleges that RC Herr, LLC, which markets itself online and across social media as “Farm Show Milkshakes,” partook in “a deliberate and calculated plan to trade upon the reputation and good will established by the Dairymen,” using Dairymen’s name and marketing “with the intent to confuse the consuming public.”

In an email Friday, a spokesperson for RC Herr declined to answer questions, but said the group denies the allegations “and will vigorously defend our rights.”

The Dairymen’s Association — a nonprofit which promotes Pennsylvania’s dairy industry — has sold its milkshakes since 1953 at the annual farm show in Harrisburg, which attracts around half a million visitors each year to ogle at live calf births, butter sculptures, rabbits, and rodeo. Proceeds from the frozen fan-favorite are used to fund agriculture education, scholarships, a dairy cow birthing center, and statewide milk distribution, according to the complaint.

» READ MORE: At Pennsylvania Farm Show, animals with names, jobs, and sometimes a lucky pass

After 70 years of selling shakes at the farm show, the lawsuit asserts that the Dairymen’s vanilla, chocolate, and choco-nilla milkshakes have “been historically and colloquially referred to and otherwise known by the public as the ‘farm show milkshake.’ ”

In 2017, the Dairymen’s Association made an agreement with RC Herr — a Camp Hill-based limited liability company established that same year — for RC Herr to market and sell the famed Dairymen’s milkshakes at events beyond the farm show. In 2018, while RC Herr was still vending milkshakes under agreement with Dairymen’s, the lawsuit claims the group filed a federal trademark application for a logo reading “Farm Show Milkshakes,” with “complete knowledge of the Dairymen’s first-established interest” in the name.

In September 2021, the Dairymen’s Association terminated its relationship with RC Herr, demanding that the nascent group remove all Dairymen’s logos and milkshakes from the group’s promotional materials and social media platforms.

The lawsuit complaint does not detail why Dairymen’s chose to partner with RC Herr in the first place, nor why they chose to cut it off, and representatives from both parties did not answer questions on the matter. But, court records show, the relationship quickly curdled.

According to the complaint, despite Dairymen’s demand, Herr’s “Farm Show Milkshakes” marketing continued, operating from the farmshowmilkshakes.com domain and “Farm Show Milkshakes” social media handles, while advertising their product as “Authentic Farm Show Milkshake[s].”

Until lawyers for the Dairymen’s Association sent the group a cease-and-desist letter in October 2022, the lawsuit asserts RC Herr intentionally associated the group with Dairymen’s desserts, describing the shakes on its website as having “grown their reputation for being thick & delicious at the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg.”

The website now describes Farm Show Milkshakes as “a group of Penn State grads with ties to Pennsylvania’s agricultural industry” who “came together to officially form Farm Show Milkshakes to bring a GREAT milkshake to your event.”

The complaint states that the group also altered photos of milkshakes advertised on its social media, swapping out the Dairymen’s logo for that of Farm Show Milkshakes, “creating an association which intentionally misleads consumers.” And, the lawsuit claims, RC Herr also used the PA Dairymen’s Association name in its website metatag information — used to direct internet searches — in attempts “to have consumers searching for the Dairymen’s product directed to its own website.” The information appears to have since been removed.

The milkshake battle also spilled over into the community, the lawsuit alleges, when in September 2022, the Dairymen’s Association food truck contract with a York Springs school district was spoiled after RC Herr told the district that they had the exclusive right to the “Farm Show Milkshake” name.

And in May 2023, the lawsuit claims that RC Herr added to the confusion when selling Farm Show Milkshakes from a tent at Fort Hunter Park, where the company didn’t intervene when an event sponsor displayed a sign with an arrow reading “Pa Dairymen’s Association Milkshakes” pointing to the Herr tent.

The Dairymen’s lawsuit calls for the court to order anyone affiliated with RC Herr to stop implying a connection to the Dairymen’s Association, to stop using any packaging or marketing materials “confusingly similar” to that of the dairy industry group, and to pay Dairymen’s for damages to its reputation.

“With the filing of our complaint in federal court, the PA Dairymen’s Association has taken action to protect our farm show milkshake brand, and to prevent consumer confusion in the marketplace,” said Dairymen’s attorney Michael Winfield in a written statement. “We are proud of our seventy-year association with the Pennsylvania Farm Show, and our milkshake product that the public has come to love and recognize as the ‘farm show milkshake.’ We look forward to the resolution of this matter through the judicial process.”