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A major Indiana egg farm is suing a New Jersey packaging company, claiming its allegedly defective packaging resulted in thousands of dollars in lost product.
The lawsuit, filed by Seymour-based Rose Acre Farms, Inc. Friday in the Indiana Commercial Court in Marion County, alleges breach of contract against defendant Tri-Cor Flexible Packaging Inc.
The egg farm is represented by Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP. Attorneys for the farm did not respond to The Lawyer’s request for comment before Monday’s deadline.
Representatives for Tri-Cor did not respond to The Indiana Lawyer’s request for comment before Monday’s deadline.
Rose Acre is the second largest egg producer in the country, producing shell eggs and other egg products for industrial and food service customers. Since 2010, the farm has been in a contract with Tri-Cor Flexible Packaging Inc. to buy polyethylene film and bags.
According to the lawsuit, in January 2024, Rose Acre purchased an order of Tri-Cor’s bags to ship the farm’s dried egg yolk powder in.
That October, a customer allegedly informed Rose Acre that a shipment of 87 cases of powder they received contained bags that had split open along the seams, according to court documents. The powder in those bags were deemed unusable because the split seams exposed the product to potential contamination.
Rose Acre reimbursed the customer over $21,000 for the damaged products and incurred $1,050 in freight costs to pick up the unusable product.
The same month, another customer told Rose Acre it also received a shipment of egg yolk powder in plastic bags with defective seams, court documents stated.
Rose Acre filed a complaint with Tri-Cor, and the packaging company responded, asking the farm to return the bad product to the plant. Rose Acre said they couldn’t send the bags back because they had already been used to ship products to the farm’s customers.
The farm said it has received at least one more customer report that cases of powder are unusable and anticipate more customer complaints, court documents stated.
Rose Acre is suing Tri-Cor for breach of contract, breach of implied warranty of merchantability, and breach of warranty of fitness for a particular purpose.
The case is Rose Acre Farms, Inc. v. Tri-Cor Flexible Packaging, Inc., 49D01-2504-CE-019839.
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