Hormel, Pilgrim’s Pride and Beef Products Inc. were three companies providing the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service with a personal update during February. A delegation from each company met with acting Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety Carmen Rottenberg and acting FSIS Administrator Paul Kiecker.
The FSIS reported the meetings its…
AIG, the multinational insurance company, says its Chartis Specialty Insurance Co. sold the Disney Co. a policy for journalists at ABC Television that would only pay out if they were sued for malice and had obtained advanced permission about all the legalities involved from outside lawyers before anyone sued.
It probably can be argued that…
ELK POINT, SD — A 12-member jury and four alternates, including 11 women and five men, are ready to hear opening arguments today in a $1.9 billion defamation trial scheduled to last eight weeks here at the Union County Court House.
Union County Courthouse in Elk Point, SD, is the location…
Given the BPI v. ABC trial starts this week, I thought it would be good to repost an Op-Ed I penned in April 2012.
What if you were the CEO of a multimillion dollar, privately held food manufacturing company and awoke one morning to find that the name of your best selling product (you…
ABC Broadcasting and on-air reporter Jim Avila are being ordered to face a Union County, SD jury over a $5.7 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Beef Products Inc. (BPI).
ABC News Anchor Diane Sawyer, however, was released from the litigation over the Disney-owned network’s depiction…
I like a good trial as much as the next guy. Late last week, South Dakota Circuit Judge Cheryle Gering said she was not going to dismiss Beef Products Inc.’s $1.2-billion lawsuit against ABC News. 
For a moment at least, we can all have that fantasy about being in Elk Point, SD, someday in the…
Lawyers representing ABC News and two former USDA inspectors squared off Tuesday in a South Dakota courtroom against attorneys for Beef Products Inc. (BPI) in a defamation lawsuit stemming from the television network’s coverage of the company’s product, “lean finely textured beef,” commonly referred to as “pink slime,” in a series of critical media coverage…
With controversial issues such as genetically engineered foods, nanotechnology and Pink Slime occupying headlines that leave consumers concerned and food company executives wringing their hands, a panel of food safety experts convened on the second full day of the 2013 IAFP conference to answer a pressing question: How can the food industry bridge the gap…
Would Diane Sawyer hanging around tiny Elk Point, SD for a state Circuit Court trial be even more of a spectacle than in 1998 when Oprah Winfrey had to spent most of a week in the Texas cattle city of Amarillo? One thing for sure, Oprah got the “big” city, as Amarillo’s population was around…
By Helena Bottemiller and Gretchen Goetz By March of last year, lean finely textured beef (LFTB) had reached celebrity status under the unfavorable moniker “pink slime.” The product—which is made by centrifuging slightly heated fatty beef trimmings to separate out lean meat bits and then treating that meat with ammonia gas to reduce foodborne pathogens …
The trade press magazine Meat & Poultry has come out with its annual Top 100 rankings of the industry’s biggest companies. In doing the annual rankings, Meat & Poultry discloses the economic damage done to Dakota Dunes, SD-based Beef Products Inc. by last year’s media storm over the use of “lean finely textured beef” by…
