“Pink Slime” Defamation Lawsuit Goes To Trial

A lawsuit brought by Beef Products, Inc., maker of a ground beef additive dubbed “pink slime” by ABC News, went to trial this week in South Dakota. BPI filed the lawsuit in 2012, calling ABC’s reporting on the product defamatory and misleading, and causing BPI’s revenue to drop by 80 percent. BPI says its product does contain small amounts of ammonia to kill pathogens, but not enough to be harmful. Some experts say that’s not really the problem: even with the added ammonia, the product may not be as pathogen-free as regular ground beef. But ABC could lose the case anyway because it’s not likely that a jury in South Dakota would side with a big media company “against a large meat manufacturer who employed a bunch of people.” [Image Credit: © BPI, Inc. ]