Mislabeled Meat Leads To Lawsuit Against Chicago Company: Feds

CHICAGO, IL — A federal civil lawsuit has been filed against Kingdom Farms Wholesale Meats Inc. on Chicago's West Side, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois. The lawsuit claims the company misbranded and mislabeled beef and chicken products. The company omitted legally required information from the labels, according to the lawsuit.

The government sued the company, as well as its president and owner Kieran Moran, over packaged chicken breasts, ground beef, steaks and beef tenderloin it offered for sale in 2016.

According to the suit, Kingdom Farms violated the Federal Meat Inspection Act by applying federal inspection labels to meat products without authorization. The company also reused shipping containers — that had previous federal marks of inspection — without authorization, according to the complaint. The lawsuit states that Kingdom Farms offered the mislabeled products for sale.

The federal agriculture department's Food Safety and Inspection Service issued a warning to the company in March 2013, the government said.

Kingdom Farms and Moran are also accused of offering around 115 pounds of meat products for sale that were "adulterated, misbranded and non-federally inspected," court documents show.

Eric Greenberg, legal counsel to Kingdom Farms, said there were no safety issues with the company's products. He said they were the subject of an agreed resolution with USDA before they were filed with the court, and that they were approved by the court Tuesday and the case is concluded.

“Under the agreed resolution, the company and Mr. Moran did not admit to the alleged violations but agreed to impose specific labeling and recordkeeping procedures on the company’s operation for up to 3 years going forward, and the company already imposed those procedures several months ago, " Greenberg said in a statement.

“The company and Mr. Moran are happy to continue to cooperate with USDA to assure that the company’s products are properly labeled,” Greenberg stated.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois was seeking a permanent injunction against Kingdom Farms that bars the company from “…directly or indirectly transporting, selling, offering for sale or transportation, or receiving for transportation in commerce, poultry, poultry food products, meat, and meat food products that are misbranded…”

The suit also asked the company to cover attorney and court costs.

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