Goodwin has taken a multi-faceted approach to serving clients across the food and healthy living industries, recently winning a 2011 Archangel Award for pro bono service from Vitamin Angels, an industry nonprofit client devoted to reducing child mortality by delivering essential micronutrients to children worldwide.
The firm’s Food Industry Group provides counsel and strategic advice to a wide range of food, nutritional supplement and healthy living businesses. Led by Joanne Gray and Tom Meriam, the group offers clients a cross-practice approach, complemented by a deep knowledge of market trends and business challenges.
Gray noted, “Our team was created specifically to address the unique business needs of companies in the food industry, including supplement companies, restaurant chains and packaged food companies . With more than 120, transaction lawyers, litigators, patent attorneys and scientists, we can deliver holistic, integrated and solution-oriented results to food industry clients facing a broad range of legal issues.”
Goodwin’s diverse industry assignments have included recent work for:
- TA Associates, a private equity firm with $16 billion of capital raised since inception and long-term Goodwin client, on its majority investment in Dymatize Enterprises, Inc., a leading manufacturer and distributor of nutritional and sports supplements.
- Del Monte/Starkist, BumbleBee and Chicken of the Sea and others, winning a key California Proposition 65 victory regarding mandatory warning labels for naturally occurring mercury in tuna.
- Papa Murphy’s, a take n’ bake pizza franchisor with more than 1,200 stores in 37 states on its sale to Lee Equity Partners
The Food Industry Group offers legal counsel on private equity/financing, M&A, regulatory issues (including FTC and FDA), risk management and labeling, California Prop 65, products liability, intellectual property and executive compensation.