Food, Beverage & Agribusiness

Our nationally ranked food, beverage, agribusiness, and cosmetics attorneys are perfectly situated to help you navigate your business and legal needs and create business-minded solutions to the challenges you face. Our technical prowess and comprehensive understanding of the industry and regulatory and legislative bodies – where our lawyers and policy advisors have actually served (including the FDA, USDA, and FTC) – coupled with our responsiveness and effectiveness set our team well ahead of the competition.

Our clients range from the largest household brands to some of the most innovative, cutting-edge companies in the business: 

• Food and beverage manufacturers and distributors
• Growers and producers, including USDA-regulated meat, poultry, and egg producers
• Alcoholic beverage companies and distributors
• Dietary supplement, personal care, cosmetics, and packaging manufacturers, distributors, and retailers
• Ingredient and other product suppliers
• Grocery and restaurant chains and other retail businesses
• Trade associations

We guide established companies and startups through each phase of product development, marketing, and distribution, advising on regulatory compliance and managing regulatory and litigation risk along the way.

• Regulatory: We proactively address and resolve your FDA and USDA regulatory issues that arise throughout the product supply chain, including labeling and claims, food safety, preventive controls, FSMA compliance, registration issues, premarket clearance, and import issues. 
• Litigation: We have particular strength in defending and representing manufacturers and retailers in consumer class action labeling matters, recall litigation, contractual disputes, and antitrust litigation. 
• Compliance & Enforcement: Our attorneys represent clients facing FDA, USDA, and CBP enforcement actions and investigations, including inspections, product recalls, threatened suspension of FDA-facility registrations, responses to warning letters, FDA Form 483s, establishment inspection reports (EIRs), and import holds and detentions. 
• Corporate: We provide corporate support on every aspect of your business, including advising on supply chain agreements and FDA due diligence support for corporate financing and mergers and acquisitions, as well as issues ranging from unclaimed gift cards and state escheat laws to employment risk, immigration policy, and data privacy and breach assessments.
• Legislative & Public Policy: We assist in the development of policy and implementation strategies, help draft legislation and testimony, prepare you for interviews with congressional committee staff and congressional testimony, assist with agency oversight, and provide advice on pending legislation – all with the client’s future in mind.

Our team is ranked in Band 2 by Chambers USA for Food & Beverages: Regulatory & Litigation. Our attorneys are also listed in Chambers USA and The Best Lawyers in America for Food & Beverage Law, including Lawyer of the Year in 2020.

Please follow the links provided for our representative experience in:

Regulatory
Litigation
Compliance & Enforcement
Corporate
Legislative & Public Policy

Regulatory

Bringing Products to Market / Marketing and Labeling 

• Advising one of the largest processed food manufacturers on product claim substantiation and risk mitigation.
• Advising hemp-based and CBD-containing food, supplement, and cosmetics manufacturers, co-packers, and retailers on labeling compliance and risk mitigation. 
• Advising a plant-based food manufacturer on product claim substantiation. 
• Providing strategic counsel to a multinational beverage manufacturer on compliance with mandatory bioengineered food labeling requirements. 
• Reviewing the regulatory status of ingredients for new product launches for both well-known and private-label cosmetics companies.
• Advising on Proposition 65 requirements and environmental marketing claims, such as “BPA-free” and recyclability claims. 
• Advising an e-commerce retail platform on all aspects of FDA regulatory compliance for dietary supplements and food, including the legal status of ingredients, labeling and advertising, and enforcement and litigation risk.
• Counseling on testimonials and endorsements for a cosmetics manufacturer, including use on social media.
• Advising an alcoholic beverage manufacturer on compliance with FDA labeling regulations. 
• Assisting manufacturers in obtaining self-affirmed generally recognized as safe (GRAS) status for food-contact substances and food ingredients. 
• Counseling retailers on compliance with FDA menu labeling requirements. 

Food Safety

• Providing strategic advice on market withdrawal and product recalls, including assisting on root cause analysis and coordination with the USDA and FDA and the resolution of subsequent insurance and products liability claims.
• Counseling human and animal food manufacturers and producers on compliance with and implementation of FSMA requirements, including CGMP, HARPC, supply chain verification, and FSVP. 
• Working with airline catering companies and multiple food manufacturers to develop strategies to mitigate potential food safety issues. 
• Advising food carriers and transporters on compliance with FDA sanitary transportation requirements. 
• Advising national restaurant chains and food processors in implementing robust produce supply chain management practices. 
• Reviewing GRAS certifications and customer guaranties for food-contact substance manufacturers.
• Advising a variety of food retailers, including restaurants, third-party delivery services, and food commissaries and kitchens on navigating local and state food safety regulatory requirements. 

Back to top

Litigation

• Representing companies facing threatened and filed consumer class actions spanning the spectrum of challenges to food, dietary supplement, beverage, and cosmetic labeling, including “natural,” sugar, vanilla, unauthorized nutrient claims, slack-fill, efficacy claims, “free of,” serving sizes, and national origin claims. We have a strong record of prevailing in motions to dismiss and defeating class certification. 
• National labeling counsel for one of North America’s largest food companies, defending the company in all its consumer class action labeling cases, slack-fill actions, and Proposition 65 matters.
• Defending one of North America’s largest beverage companies against consumer class action labeling cases in various jurisdictions. 
• Defended leading food manufacturers in adulterated food personal injury claims arising from highly publicized food recalls, including defending more than 700 cases in 24 states, defeating 29 class actions, and defending 20,000 individual claims related to a single recall.
• Defending the litigation and facilitated the resolution of various Proposition 65 demands.
• Defending national supermarkets in litigation arising out of recalls, including working with regulators and advising on public relations matters.
• Litigated numerous trademark and unfair competition disputes, including Lanham Act claims.
• Representing food manufacturers in vendor and supplier disputes.
• Representing food and beverage manufacturers and retailers in price-fixing investigations and lawsuits.

Back to top

Compliance & Enforcement

• Defending food manufacturers and transporters against claims of civil and criminal violations of FDA and USDA regulations before the Department of Justice, Main Justice, and assistant U.S. attorneys.
• Counseling food manufacturers, distributors, and retailers throughout FDA inspections and in response to enforcement actions such as FDA Form 483s, establishment inspection reports, warning letters, threatened suspension of FDA registration, and implementation of recalls.
• Counseling a national restaurant chain in engagement with the FDA in response to an outbreak investigation and issuance of a warning letter, including drafting a response letter that averted further enforcement action.
• Representing a produce grower in response to an FDA outbreak investigation and inspections. 
• Secured the release of imported food detained by the FDA based on cadmium and lead testing.
• Worked with the FDA on behalf of a beverage manufacturer to resolve import detentions and demonstrate that lead concentrations fell within a permissible range under regulatory standards.
• Represented a dietary supplement maker in responding to the FDA’s warning letter regarding its product formulations and labeling claims.

For more on our compliance & enforcement experience across other FDA-regulated products, such as pharmaceuticals and medical devices, see our FDA Compliance & Enforcement Team. 

Back to top

Corporate

• Conducting FDA regulatory due diligence reviews of food, dietary supplement, and cosmetic companies and providing advice on the regulatory risk profiles of companies subject to pending acquisitions.
• Negotiating distribution and quality agreements for food and cosmetics retailers and manufacturers. 
• Drafting standard terms and conditions related to purchase orders, shipping, and distribution.
• Representing a privately held leading restaurant franchisor in the startup and establishment of a food manufacturing business. 
• Representing a leading restaurant franchisor in the negotiation of technology, logistics, and distribution agreements.
• Counseling clients in the food and beverage industry, including many Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies, on the unclaimed property, consumer protection, and other aspects of their gift card and promotional/rewards/loyalty programs.

Back to top

Legislative & Public Policy

• Analyzing proposed legislation and emerging policies affecting FDA-, USDA-, and TTB-regulated entities, including regulatory enforcement related to e-commerce platforms, cosmetics regulation, CBD regulation, bioengineered food disclosure, and cell-cultured products. 
• Monitoring activities of key House and Senate committees.
• Tracking state initiatives on issues of importance to FDA-, USDA-, and TTB-regulated entities. 
• Created collateral materials, one pagers, issue briefs, and other materials for use in meetings and agency submissions.
• Drafting social media messaging and other external communications in support of clients’ policy goals.

Back to top

For Your Consumption – our food and beverage attorneys digest and serve up recent court cases and litigation trends affecting the food, beverage, agribusiness, and cosmetics industries. Bon appétit!

Food & Beverage Digest – June 2024: juicier than ever

Food & Beverage Digest – March 2024: we preserve the flavor

Food & Beverage Digest – January 2024: a safe, non-addictive, and healthy alternative

Food & Beverage Digest – December 2023: only the finest of preservatives

Food & Beverage Digest – November 2023: making a federal case out of class actions

Food & Beverage Digest – October 2023: fulfilling your nutritional needs

Food & Beverage Digest – September 2023: clarifying quality and quantity

Food & Beverage Digest – July 2023: sold by weight, not volume

Food & Beverage Digest – June 2023: class actions from soup to nuts