Nestle Prepared Foods Co. is reportedly pursuing legal action against one of their ingredients suppliers, National Food Trading Corp., after numerous complaints about a contaminated food product led to an expensive recall.
In the lawsuit – filed in a US District Court in Utah at the end of last month – Nestle claims that the ingredients suppliers for its Lean Cuisine frozen ready meals were negligent and breached contract, as some of the meals were found to contain hard, blue plastic pieces. Nestle says that these foreign objects, found and reported by disgruntled consumers, came from a sun-dried tomato mixture that defendant supplied to them.
Nestle was reportedly forced to recall approximately 880,000 pounds of frozen meals due to issues with contamination, causing the company to incur what the lawsuit states as:
“substantial losses, including, but not limited to, refunds to customers, the value of the recalled meals, the value of the unusable sun dried tomatoes, cancelled orders, and the costs of shipping, storage, plant operations, and investigation, as well as interest.”
Nestle is also asserting that its reputation was damaged as a result of the mass recall.
In this case, both disputing parties will need to have professional insurance for product liability issues, Nestle in order to combat customer complaints and the National Food Trading Corp. as the supplier of allegedly defective ingredients.