BJ - 103-Year-Old Meat Producer Forced To Seek Bankruptcy Protection | Benzinga
CEO Paul Bardinas said the company tapped its credit line in January for $7 million as it ramped up production of corned beef, which makes up a large portion of the company's annual sales, ahead of St. Patrick's Day.
"Throughout the year, we typically operate just on our cash reserves, and we're able to function week to week because we're a solvent company — and we were — until this happened" Bardinas told FreightWaves. "We were actually looking forward to a profitable first quarter and a good St. Patrick's Day, but we did have to borrow money to build this inventory and to store it."
Family-owned Freirich Foods, headquartered in Salisbury, North Carolina, has been operating since 1921. Bardinas said he's the fourth generation involved in the company's day-to-day operations.
While Bardinas declined to name the cold storage facility, Freirich Foods' Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition, filed March 20 in the U.S. District Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, lists claims against Americold Logistics and insurers, arising from "spoliation of product due to lack of refrigeration."
"At the moment all we have is the spoiled product, obviously, because temperature abuse is the only thing that explains it" Bardinas said. ...