Industries
Food and Beverage

Food and Beverage

This is a critical time for the food and beverage industry. Many farms, producers, processers, distributors, restaurants, and retailers are affected by supply shortages, rising input costs, and limited market opportunities, all issues that can significantly impede a growing business. And yet for others, it’s also an era of excitement marked by rapidly changing consumer preferences, new direct-to-consumer brands, and big investments into ag-tech and food research and development.

Shipman’s Food and Beverage Group delivers coordinated, multi-disciplinary legal counsel, relying on our knowledge and experience built across a variety of clients and industries. We begin with a clear understanding of your business and priorities to tailor our services to strategically and cost-effectively fit your needs. We endeavor to ask tough questions and provide purpose-based, value-driven advice. We provide an experienced and fresh perspective, and the comfort and clarity you need to focus more on building your business and less on your legal concerns.

Business Counseling

Members of Shipman’s team have been trusted advisors for local, regional, and national food & beverage companies for decades, including serving many as outside general counsel. We provide sophisticated advice on a wide variety of business, finance, and transactional matters. Whether you are forming a new enterprise, managing a franchise, raising capital, negotiating a food service or vendor/supplier contract, or seeking/maintaining a new license or certification, our attorneys have the skills and experience to help you accomplish your goals. We also regularly assist individuals and businesses facing sophisticated tax, succession planning, and financial distress issues. Read more.

Employment

For many food & beverage businesses, your employees are your greatest asset and the “face” of your company. We align with your goals to guide you through all aspects of the employment relationship while offering practical legal advice across a full suite of employment matters, including compliance with federal and state requirements; employment contracts (e.g., non-competition and other restrictive covenants); workplace policies, handbooks, and trainings; and work authorizations for foreign workers. We also publish the Employment Law Letter with timely updates and articles on the latest developments relating to employment law. Read more.

Real Estate and Land Use

Shipman is a regional leader in commercial real estate, with decades of experience assisting tenants and owners/purchasers in leasing, acquiring, and financing properties for the development of farms and processing facilities, as well as hotels, retail locations, restaurants, and other food service spaces. Our land use experience encompasses the full range of local permitting, property rights claims and litigation, and conservation and historic preservation mechanisms. We routinely represent clients before state and local agencies in administrative proceedings and in civil actions in the state and federal trial and appellate courts. Read more.

Environmental, Health and Safety

Shipman’s environmental team routinely provides counseling on a range of environmental, health, and safety (EHS) matters, including compliance, permitting, litigation, and regulatory enforcement. We develop and implement innovative legal risk management strategies, including “farm to fridge” risk management plans and custom environmental insurance. Shipman’s team is also focused on critical issues such as workplace health and safety; cold storage and refrigerant management; and the legal and regulatory impacts of emerging contaminants (e.g., PFAS) on farms, food processors, and food packaging companies. Read more.

Energy

Our energy team is a regional leader in innovative clean energy projects. We have assisted processing, warehouse, and distribution facilities add rooftop solar arrays and develop battery storage capabilities, and we have worked with farms to install geothermal systems, anaerobic digesters, and ground-mounted solar arrays to supplement a variety of agricultural uses. We advise clients on preconstruction design and permitting, securing government and market incentives (including energy and tax credits), financing, power purchase agreements, and leasing/licensing. Additionally, we counsel clients on green building standards and innovative energy efficiency and use improvements. Read more.

Intellectual Property

Shipman attorneys possess a deep understanding of the critical role that intellectual property can play in succeeding in a competitive marketplace and in defining the customer experience. From trademarks to trade secrets, our experienced team is ready to help you identify, acquire, secure, and maintain your intellectual property assets. We also regularly prosecute and defend against claims of infringement, misappropriation, counterfeiting, and unfair competition. Read more.

Globalization and International Trade

Food and beverage businesses operate in a complex, global network of vendors, suppliers, wholesalers, distributors, retailers, and regulators. Shipman helps clients manage these relationships and develop legal strategies to effectively identify, address, and prevent potential international compliance issues, including those associated with imported products, ingredients, packaging, and expansion into new foreign markets, all supported by Shipman’s membership in and leadership of Interlaw, an elite global network of pre-eminent independent law firms comprising 8,000+ lawyers based in over 150 cities around the world. Read more.

Litigation

When disputes or other claims arise, we work with you to resolve them and maximize client value and minimize risk, whether through negotiation, mediation, arbitration, or litigation. Our litigation practice is extensive and diverse, ranging from modest personal and small business disputes to complex multi-jurisdictional actions and class actions requiring substantial planning, resources, and trial skills. We have assisted food & beverage clients in a range of matters involving product liability, supply chain, antitrust, and labeling, some which have been “bet-the-farm” cases of significant importance to our clients and the food & beverage industry more generally. Read more.

Pro Bono

Various participants in the food and beverage industry, particularly in the farming community, are an underserved group when it comes to access to legal representation. Shipman attorneys are committed to using their skills and experience for the benefit of the community and finding opportunities to help those who need our assistance the most and qualify for pro bono representation. We also have an excellent relationship with a regional non-profit that connects eligible farmers, food entrepreneurs, and related organizations to pro bono legal services as well as provides workshops and trainings to foster a sustainable, resilient, and just food system. Read more.

Experience

Business and corporate

Act as Outside General Counsel to Major Regional Dairy Cooperative

Represent premier regional dairy farmer cooperative which produces award winning cheeses and other products. Representation includes contracting, finance, cooperative governance, mergers and acquisitions, real estate and litigation.

Environmental

Ongoing Assistance to Food and Beverage Companies Regarding PFAS and Food Packaging Compliance

As state-level bans on intentionally added PFAS in food packaging continue to go into effect, we regularly assist food and beverage companies with multi-state and international footprints undertake highly nuanced legal and technical evaluations of PFAS risks associated with food packaging and compliance. This effort includes requesting certificates of compliance from upstream food packaging suppliers as well as evaluating and responding to similar demands from downstream distributors, wholesalers and retailers.

Legal and Technical PFAS Risk Management Planning for a Multi-State Food and Beverage Company

We provide comprehensive assistance to a large, multi-state food and beverage client undertaking an extensive legal and technical PFAS risk management plan to address its potential operational risks, including up and down its supply chain. The project involves engaging and directing a national environmental consulting firm, coordinating technical and legal advice on the rapidly changing legal/regulatory federal and multi-state landscape, advising on technical, health and litigation developments and addressing all stages of the client’s operations from procurement, food production, transportation, packaging and distribution. Our ongoing support also includes advising on PFAS sampling strategies, supply chain contracts, insurance coverage (looking backward and forward) and stakeholder communications.

Food and beverage

Labeling Review and Compliance

We have advised various clients, including consumer packaged goods (CPG) and dietary supplement companies, regarding federal (Food and Drug Administration) and state labeling requirements, including with respect to allergens, supplement facts (e.g., ingredients, proprietary blends), and origin/geographic descriptors (e.g., local, made in).

Local, State, and Federal Agriculture and Food Manufacturing Licensing

We have assisted various clients, including farms, consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, and “non-traditional” food clients (such as independent schools) evaluate and navigate a variety of permitting, licensing, and registration requirements before local departments of zoning and public health, the Connecticut Department of Agriculture, and Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection. We have assisted clients apply for local food store/service licenses and state Food Manufacturing Establishment licenses (including for wholesale) as well as register with the state under the Produce Safety Rule. Recent examples include securing local and state approvals for a farm to install a shipping container converted into a hydroponic lettuce and herb garden.

Liquor Permit Applications for Hotels and Restaurants

Various Major Hotels and Restaurant Chains

Handled liquor permit applications for major hotels and restaurant chains, including new permits, substitute permittee applications and renewal applications. Representation before Commission on liquor control violations and remonstrances.

Land use

Conservation Easement for Historic Working Farm

We represented the seller in what is thought to be Connecticut’s first lease-to-own farm sale involving a land trust. Our client, a regional land conservancy, sold a historic working farm to its long-time tenant after they satisfied the “sweat equity” requirements of the lease, including certain property maintenance, improvements, and other site work over more than 10 years. The land conservancy retained a bespoke agricultural conservation easement that allows for a range of agricultural and related uses and opportunities as well as requires the protection and restoration of the property, including its early-1900s potato shed and tobacco barn, which is one of the last in the area.