BATON ROUGE - Beef trim that had to be resold as pet food is at the center of a new lawsuit in Baton Rouge federal court.
Civil claims from a Texas inventory logistics company were brought Feb. 18 against Louisiana's Baton Rouge Shrimp Company, doing business as Advanced Cold Storage (ACS), for alleged negligence, breach of contract, unjust enrichment, detrimental reliance and direct action.
The lawsuit says plaintiff Marcus Technologies, LLC of Texas hired ACS to repackage approximately 80,000 pounds of beef trim in February 2020. ACS markets itself to be a state-of-the-art cold storage facility that is compliant with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.
However, the first delivery of the repackaged beef to a purchaser was rejected for not having the USDA seal. ACS claimed to the plaintiff to be working on remedying the issue. By mid-March, Marcus heard from the USDA that ACS forfeited a USDA inspection years ago, the suit says.
Consequentially, the beef trim was marked inedible and resold as pet food, causing significant financial loss for the plaintiff, the suit says. The plaintiff paid invoices received by ACS to encourage the mitigation and completion of the sale, but now asks the court for appropriate damage and restitution.
Marcus is represented by Graham Williams of Sternberg, Naccari and White, LLC, of New Orleans.