Owners of Beef Products Inc. have established a $10 million fund to benefit former BPI employees impacted by plant closures.
The fund will help employees who were laid off when sales dropped, stemming from a series of reports about the company’s Lean, Finely Textured Beef product broadcast by ABC News. BPI laid off roughly 750 employees and closed facilities in Iowa, Kansas and Texas at the time of the reports, in 2012. Following a settlement with ABC in its lawsuit, BPI announced the fund this week.
In June, BPI settled a $1.9 billion lawsuit against ABC and correspondent Jim Avila for defamation and claims that the network had used false information. The settlement amount was not made public, but the Walt Disney Company, ABC’s parent company, listed a $177 million litigation settlement in a quarterly financial filing.
