A professor from a Texas university was the star witness for a company that’s suing A-B-C and one of its reporters for stories about its beef. Texas Tech professor Mindy Brashears is head of the International Center for Food Industry Excellence at Texas Tech. She repeatedly visited “Beef Products Incorporated” plants and tested the company’s “lean, finely-textured beef.”
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The company is suing the television network for stories it claims defamed the product.
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The professor told the jury lean finely textured beef is produced from “sparse lean trimmings.”
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B-P-I says its product helped lower the fat content of ground beef, but after A-B-C aired critical stories it had to close three of the four B-P-I plants in the Midwest and layoff seven-hundred workers. Attorneys for A-B-C say people have a right to know what’s in their food and lean, finely textured beef was in about 70 percent of ground beef sold in the U.S. when the stories aired five years ago. The trial is continuing in Union County Circuit Court in Elk Point.