Burlington-based Echo Lake Foods, a family-owned manufacturer of frozen foods, is being sued by a customer after allegedly providing them with a pre-cooked scrambled egg product that was contaminated by listeria. Haverhill, Massachusetts-based Hans Kissle, Inc. filed the lawsuit, which did not specify an exact damages amount, on Tuesday. Court records do show a demand
Burlington-based Echo Lake Foods, a family-owned manufacturer of frozen foods, is being sued by a customer after allegedly providing them with a pre-cooked scrambled egg product that was contaminated by listeria.
Haverhill, Massachusetts-based Hans Kissle, Inc. filed the lawsuit, which did not specify an exact damages amount, on Tuesday. Court records do show a demand of $2 million.
Hans Kissle is a producer, manufacturer, seller, processor and packager of a variety of foods throughout the United States.
The company’s offerings include salads, prepared entrees, quiches and pot pies, and dips and spreads. Hans Kissle gets ingredients for its food production from various suppliers, including Echo Lake Foods.
In 2022, Hans Kissle worked with a retail customer to develop breakfast taco fillings predominantly composed of cooked egg products sourced from Echo Lake Foods.
[caption id="attachment_589188" align="alignleft" width="300"] Precooked, diced scrambled eggs from Echo Lake Foods. Image courtesy of Echo Lake Foods.[/caption]
Echo Lake Foods’ cooked egg products were required by Hans Kissle to undergo testing confirming they were listeria-free, according to the complaint. However, between December 2022 and January 2023, the cooked egg products provided by Echo Lake Foods allegedly tested positive for listeria at least nine times. Within the same time period, Hans Kissle alleges the product tested positive for E. coli at least once.
After repeated contamination findings, Hans Kissle cancelled all remaining orders from Echo Lake Foods in January 2023.
"Between approximately December 2022 and January 2023, Hans Kissle conducted a comprehensive root cause investigation that conclusively identified ELF’s cooked egg products as the source of the contamination," according to the complaint.
Hans Kissle says the contaminated egg products were rendered useless immediately. All of the company’s products that use the egg products were considered damaged and unusable.
"Hans Kissle was required to halt production to help identify the source of the contamination, and to destroy finished products that contained the contaminated cooked egg products, or which were manufactured on contaminated equipment, and incur extra expenses, lost profits, lost opportunities, and business interruption losses, all due to the contaminated state of (Echo Lake Foods’) cooked egg products," reads the complaint.
Hans Kissel argues Echo Lake Foods was negligent in failing to provide the company with a safe egg product and seeks both monetary and statutory damages.
Representatives with Echo Lake Foods did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
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