Posted on 11/26/2019 1:44:46 AM PST by LibWhacker
Bumble Bee Foods—which along with StarKist and Chicken of the Sea is one of America's largest canned tuna brands—filed for bankruptcy on Thursday and plans to sell its business to the Taiwanese seafood company FCF Fishery. The sale should conclude what has been a wild ride for Bumble Bee since 2015 when a previous sale attempt revealed a massive price-fixing scheme across the entire U.S. tuna industry. But for consumers, store shelves should remain normal despite all the chaos behind the scenes.
Though the Department of Justice had long appeared concerned about price fixing in the canned tuna market, things took a major turn four years ago when Thai Union, owners of Chicken of the Sea, attempted to buyout Bumble Bee to propel its market share past industry leader StarKist, which is owned by South Korea's Dongwon Industries. Chicken of the Sea eventually flipped, working with the feds to avoid prosecution, and from there, Bumble Bee pled guilty in 2017 followed by StarKist a year later.
The writing was on the wall for Bumble Bee at that point: Already looking to sell, the company was now further saddled by a $25 million fine from the DOJ and a litany of additional civil lawsuits, not to mention that their now former-CEO was indicted in the scandal. It all resulting in "spending tens of millions of dollars in defense costs" on top of the fine, according to bankruptcy documents cited by CNN Business.
And yet, despite these moves, Bumble Bee as a brand will still be at your local grocer. "It's been a challenging time for our company but today's actions allow us to move forward with minimal disruption to our day-to-day operations," Bumble Bee president and CEO Jan Tharp was quoted as saying. "Employees will get paid, our customer partners can count on us to continue delivering outstanding brands and services, and vendors will be paid in the ordinary course of business."
If that sounds a bit fishy (pardon my pun), it helps to understand exactly who the bankruptcy filing will affect. According to Fast Company, the creditors with the largest unsecured debt claims are FCF—which will be acquiring the company—and the U.S. Department of Justice, which is still owed $17 million from the 2017 fine. The seafood industry site Undercurrent News reports that, as part of the buyout deal, FCF has agreed to make sure the government gets the rest of its money, theoretically putting an end to that drama. However, civil plaintiffs will reportedly be left out in the cold—which is clearly good for business but not good for non-government groups looking to get paid back for all that price-fixing.
"The initial proposal favors insiders, including FCF, which is a part-owner in Bumble Bee, the stalking horse bidder, and a creditor that is seeking preference for payment of its bills," Christopher Lebsock of Hausfeld, the law firm representing distributors in the civil lawsuits, told Undercurrent. "We intend to be active participants in the bankruptcy process.
Delmonte
I remember Weemsco Tuna!
Thanks for the reminder.
It may not be everyone’s taste but that has to be one of the greatest sitcoms in TV history. It was so wrong it was right. :-)
You can tune a piano, but you can’t tune-a fish.
I worked at a Bumble Bee Seafoods (BBS) salmon cannery in Alaska four summers. Hard work but in six weeks you could make enough for a year of college. A percentage of the cannery workers just couldn’t handle the workload and got reassigned to ‘quiet spaces’ (building wooden boxes for salmon roe, etc.) and were never ‘invited’ back.
Castle and Cook decided to sell BBS my last summer there and eventually it became Bumble Bee, the company in this complaint.
I don’t eat much fish...
And that boys and girls is what happens when they start selling dolphin free tuna!!
That’s a classic!
I think Nancy also wrote a law to keep American Samoa from having the same minimum wage as the rest of the USA.
This was because Starkist is the main employer on American Samoa. It saved Starkist lots of US$ in operating cost.
Iirc her husband was a major stockholder
Class action lawsuits only ever pay the law firms involved. The public gets phony coupons.
But, but, but...
The many Milli Vanilli fans were oh so screwed, they need the phony coupons to move on with their lives.
And many attorneys tend to live high on the hog, needing piles of cash, just to carry on.
I surely hope their quality stays how it is now. They’re the only brand I like.
I grew up in Long Beach. One of our field trips (remember those?) was to the local tuna cannery—either French Sardine (StarKist) or Chicken of the Sea. The smell was horrible and it looked like maybe the worst job on earth. Put me off tuna fish.
Best Tuna brand is Costco’s Kirkland brand tuna. Very good flavor and the can is tightly packed.
Doesn’t Nancy Pelosi own a tuna canning company in Samoa???
Ah, beautiful South Naknek! Population 79.
Is that where you worked? I took immediate interest in your post because I remember Jack London (a favorite author from my childhood) complained bitterly about working in a Yukon cannery during the Gold Rush. IIRC, he claimed the cannery worked its employees 16 hours a day, six, seven days a week for ten cents a day. Must be what turned him into a flaming commie. I’m sure it was an unpleasant experience, but it wouldn’t have turned most people with any sense into leftist pimps.
My first thought when I first read this was, great, another favorite brand is going to be produced in Asia from now on. I think I’m done with it.
OTOH, I’m sure this isn’t as bad as coming out of the PRC, but Taiwan... it’s just that much closer to the PRC directly turning out something I’m gonna eat? No, thank you.
But I’ll hold back for a while, a couple of years at least, see how it goes, before I try it again, and then only in tiny quantities, here and there.
There are plenty of delicious, wholesome things being produced right here in the good old USA. Don’t have to go fishing in dubious Chinese waters for something to eat.
Thanks. I’ll check it out.
A cursory search on pelosi tuna finds a lot of articles with the MSM saying how terrible it is that the right lies about the saintly Nancy and her tuna ties. I didn’t bother to click on any of them.
Haha, they ought to ban those field trips.
Not a field trip, but my stepmom worked in a big cottage cheese factory. Her job was to go in at four or five AM and chase the carpets of cockroaches off the uncovered eight-foot vats of cheese. And then one by one pick the dead ones out individually. And shrug off the ones that had sunk down out of sight. I didn’t touch cottage cheese for forty years after that. I hope things have changed because I kind of like it and will have a little bit now and then.
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