Linda Bean lobster plant loses big buyer
File Photo/Brandon McKenney
Linda Bean, granddaughter of L.L. Bean, accused PETA of launching a "full-scale attack" on the Maine lobster industry after it allegedly convinced a major buyer to stop buying Bean's lobster products.
Linda Bean's lobster-processing business has lost a major New York-based buyer that sells food at sports stadiums in Boston and Minnesota.
PETA, also known as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has taken credit for persuading Delaware North Companies Sportservice to stop buying lobster from Bean in a statement it issued earlier this week.
The move promped Bean to accuse PETA of launching a “full scale attack” on the Maine lobster industry in a Thursday email to the Bangor Daily News.
“PETA begins to maraud across America, destroying such new market relationships,” she wrote in the email. “PETA has, for example, taken aim at my company’s new markets for our latest new product, the lobsticle [a lobster tail on a stick]. Using tactics of business interference with the producers and customers of Maine lobster are unwanted, un-American and unacceptable.”
Delaware North confirmed with the Portland Press Herald its decision to stop buying lobster from Bean, but declined to answer why. The company was selling Bean’s lobster products at Boston’s TD Garden, home of the Boston Celtics and Boston Bruins, and Minnesota’s Target Field, which is hosting this year’s Major League Baseball 2014 All-Star Game.
“Delaware North has a long-standing commitment to sustainable and responsible practices in food purchasing, and we do our best to maintain very high standards with our vendors,” the company said in a statement to Mainebiz and other news outlets, declining further comment.
The company did not say whether it disputed the claims in PETA’s statement asserting Delaware North Companies Sportservice President John Wentzell “gave PETA written assurance that the two venues will stop buying lobster from the company.”
Delaware North has previously touted its menus for being recognized in PETA’s annual list of top vegetarian-friendly ballparks. The company has been recognized by PETA for having vegetarian menus at ballparks for three years, with Target Field making the list in 2010.
“With … great vegetarian fare on the menu, the new Target Field is quite the animal-friendly place,” PETA Director Dan Shannon said, as quoted in a Delaware North press release.
David Byer, a senior corporate liaison with PETA, told Mainebiz he contacted Delaware North in June after seeing Bean’s company promote that its lobster products are available at TD Garden and Target Field. He said he provided the company with PETA’s undercover video from last fall that shows live lobsters being torn apart by hand — a practice PETA calls cruel and inhumane.
Not too long after, Byer said, PETA received written assurance from the president of Delaware North's food service division in July that the company would no longer buy from Bean. Byer declined to provide Mainebiz with Delaware North’s correspondence.
“We shared this information [with Delaware North] and they took swift and decisive action in support of eliminating worst practices,” he said.
The Knox County District Attorney’s Office last year rejected to pursue animal cruelty charges against Bean’s lobster processing business because it said Maine’s laws do not cover lobster and other invertebrate species. PETA called on that office to investigate after it released the video showing what it called inhumane and cruel treatment of lobsters.
Bean's Rockland facility was cited for health violations by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this year. But the plant's manager has maintained that its processing methods are safe, and that it is working to verify that information with the federal agency.
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