Governmental Authority: Governmental Authority shall mean any federal, state, local, or foreign government or governmental, quasi-governmental, administrative or regulatory authority, agency, body, or entity, including any court or other tribunal.
Meat: For this agreement, meat shall refer to (a) any meat or poultry products, as opposed to livestock, brought to a MeatHQ facility by Customer for further fabrication, processing, packaging or repackaging or (b) meat from livestock slaughtered by MeatHQ staged for processing and/or packaging or packaged.
2.1 Having taken all reasonable and practicable means to ensure the safety of livestock once delivered and prior to stunning, MeatHQ assumes complete responsibility for livestock and its products only from the time of stunning until meat products leave Lorentz’s possession. However, Lorentz is not responsible or liable for any actions taken by USDA or other Governmental Authority including, but not limited to, actions regarding post-mortem carcass inspection such as carcass or partial carcass condemnation.
2.2 Having taken all reasonable and practicable means to ensure the safety of livestock once delivered and prior to stunning, MeatHQ assumes no liability or responsibility financially or otherwise for livestock harmed or dead prior to time of stunning, unless due to Lorentz’s negligence. Customer is responsible for any costs or losses to Lorentz caused prior to stunning by livestock brought by Customer to a Lorentz facility, such as livestock arriving harmed or dead to a Lorentz facility or livestock harming self or other livestock while disembarking or while in holding pen. These include, but are not limited to, cost of removal or disposal of affected livestock, operational costs due to delays, and employee wages. Customer is not responsible for damage caused by livestock to Lorentz’s facility and/or employees. Further, once animal is inside a MeatHQ processing plant – as distinct from barns, pens or chutes leading to the plant – and prior to stunning, if the cause of an animal injured while inside the plant is undetermined or undeterminable, it will be decided in favor of customer.
2.3 Customer is responsible for any animal delivered with a zoonotic disease. If Customer delivers an infected animal that affects other animals not owned by Customer, Customer assumes liability for those animals affected. In such an event, Customer agrees to cover reasonable market price of affected animals and all reasonable associated costs incurred by MeatHQ for disruption of operations including, but not limited to, disposal of livestock, employee wages, facilities overhead costs, any legal fees and loss of packaging or other materials. The length of time of any disruption of operations is understood to mean the period from the identification of the zoonotic disease, to the restarting of normal processing activities. In the event of a disruption, Lorentz will use their best efforts to resume normal processing activities.
2.4 After livestock slaughter, MeatHQ shall gain ownership of all offal and by-products. At the sole discretion of MeatHQ, MeatHQ may offer Customer a credit for offal on a per-animal basis. Heart, liver and tongue may be retained by Customer if requested by Customer when supplying carcass cutting instructions.
3.1 MeatHQ agrees to process and package meat product to Customer’s specifications within limitations due to, but not limited to, standard Multivac settings, timing of other order demands, Governmental Authority action or other unforeseeable events. In any event, MeatHQ will provide best efforts to timely and completely fulfill Customer’s order.
3.2 MeatHQ is not responsible or liable for any quality defects in meat products other than those related to chemical, physical, or biological hazards as controlled by Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), or those related to cutting, trimming, grinding, stuffing, curing, cooking, smoking, or packaging while meat is under the control of MeatHQ. In such event, MeatHQ is only liable to the extent of the fair market value of the raw materials.
3.3 If Customer provides meat for processing, as opposed to livestock, Customer will provide meat that meets Lorentz’s quality specifications according to the type of product to be produced. Quality specifications are maintained by MeatHQ’s Quality Assurance Department. If Customer delivers raw materials to Lorentz that are later discovered to be of an unsuitable quality, Customer is responsible for all processing expenses and meat costs. This may include, but is not limited to, processing costs, handling and disposal by MeatHQ , and fair market value of any other meat contaminated by the unsuitable meat. Customer will also provide a Certificate of Analysis (COA) for such meat, as required.
4.1 Customer will incur all expenses associated with the development and printing of all labels, including USDA label approval, and any special packaging, including case boxes.
4.2 MeatHQ will provide space on site for reasonable packaging inventory, but reserves the right to charge for storage of excessive inventory. Also, MeatHQ may bill for management costs associated with labels and packaging, including but not limited to: organization of customer-specific boxes, set up and maintenance of special printing, oversight of complex packaging requests, etc. MeatHQ reserves the right to determine reasonable packaging inventory and requests and will make best efforts to provide prior notice of additional charges to Customer.
4.3 MeatHQ reserves the right to dispose of Customer’s labels and/or special packaging after six months from the last date of production for Customer. MeatHQ will make a good faith effort to offer return of such packaging prior to disposal.
4.4 MeatHQ is not liable for any legal action, recall or damages from such due to labeling errors including, but not limited to, misprinted labels, falsely printed labels, or unapproved labels, except to the extent that MeatHQ misprinted labels or mislabeled product unless such misprinting or mislabelin