`Kangadis Files for Bankruptcy Following Class Action Suits - Olive Oil Times
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Kangadis Files for Bankruptcy Following Class Action Suits

By Olive Oil Times Staff
Jun. 9, 2014 14:55 UTC
Robin Amato, Paule Pachter and Themis Kangadis

New York-based olive oil and Mediterranean spe­cialty foods pro­ducer Kangadis Foods, Inc. has filed for chap­ter 11 bank­ruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of New York.

The com­pany, which sells its olive oils under brand names that include Gourmet Factory, Capatriti and Porto, made head­lines last February when the North American Olive Oil Association (NAOOA) filed a law­suit claim­ing ​“unlaw­ful, mis­lead­ing and decep­tive mis­brand­ing.”

Though the com­pany reached a con­fi­den­tial set­tle­ment agree­ment with the NAOOA in July 2013 and never admit­ted lia­bil­ity for the mis­la­bel­ing claims, the ensu­ing legal fees have forced it to declare bank­ruptcy, accord­ing to a press release. Under chap­ter 11 bank­ruptcy, the com­pany is allowed to con­tinue nor­mal oper­a­tions while it devel­ops a reor­ga­ni­za­tion plan.

“This is always a regret­table step,” said Themis Kangadis, CEO of Kangadis Food.

“We are a fam­ily busi­ness with excel­lent cus­tomer rela­tion­ships, a highly regarded prod­uct line, ded­i­cated, hard-work­ing employ­ees and a solid track record with sup­pli­ers, busi­ness part­ners, and our local com­mu­nity. Nevertheless, we find it nec­es­sary to seek this pro­tec­tion while we con­tinue to vig­or­ously fight a poten­tially open-ended class action which we believe has no merit.”

The NAOOA had accused Kangadis Foods, Inc. of sell­ing roughly one mil­lion tins a year of olive pomace oil, a refined prod­uct derived from olive oil byprod­ucts, with the label ​“100% Pure Olive Oil.” The orga­ni­za­tion began to sus­pect foul play when Capatriti brand olive oils began appear­ing on retail shelves at one-third to one-half the price of sim­i­lar prod­ucts. Kangadis Foods con­sis­tently denied such claims.

“Our prod­ucts meet all applic­a­ble reg­u­la­tory stan­dards of the FDA, USDA and International Olive Oil Council, and are ran­domly tested for qual­ity sev­eral times through­out the year,” Kangadis said.

“We stand by our prod­ucts and we intend to emerge from this process as an even more com­pet­i­tive enter­prise.”

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