In the wake of a former U.S. employee’s claims that she was fired for whistleblowing mislabeling practices, an attorney for St. James Smokehouse of Miami, denied the allegations on Tuesday.
“St. James does not conduct its operations in the manner claimed and will vigorously defend these spurious claims,” wrote Christopher David of Fuerst Ittleman David & Joseph, in a letter obtained by SeafoodSource.
The former head buyer, Denise Chadwick of Clifton, N.J., claimed she was fired on 12 March by St. James Smokehouse, a U.S. based company with operations in Scotland, for alerting her superiors of potential criminal charges for labeling salmon from Norway and Chile as “Product of Scotland.” Chadwick is suing the company in U.S. District Court in Newark, N.J.
In an email to the company owner and president, Brendan James Maher, Chadwick claimed the mislabeling was a violation of U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations, which amounted to an “imprisonable offense” and that Maher would be “the one going to prison.”
Maher could not be reached for comment at Seafood Expo Global in Brussels on Tuesday.
“Ms. Chadwick’s false email was an effort to avoid the consequences of her failure to perform her job responsibilities and the previously announced pending termination,” the attorney’s letter continued. “The allegations related to the sale of mislabeled salmon are false and St. James is already providing documentation to its customers demonstrating the validity of the product provided. We are confident that our valued customers will see this lawsuit for what it is — a transparent effort by Ms. Chadwick to profit from her just termination.”
The letter also went on to say that Chadwick had sued another former employer, North Landing, for “strikingly similar claims.”
