Troubled American cheese firm Suprema Specialities closed its doors this month surrounded by investigations by the FBI, the Food and Drug Administration and the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).
Problems at the New Jersey- based company became apparent in December when two key financial staff resigned. That sparked the SEC investigation.
More than a dozen actions followed, mostly surrounding false accounting and falsely inflated share prices.
The FBI then embargoed $45 million (E51 million) worth of cheese because the product’s contents and labelling were called into question.
One of Suprema’s milk suppliers, Allied Federated Co-operatives, suspended supply claiming it was not paid on time.
It was Suprema’s hard cheese business which had the largest problems. This was allegedly a poorly documented brokering business, which was responsible for E340 million in sales last year.
Suprema’s soft cheese business generated E170 million in sales each year, and is not understood to have been part of the scandal.
In its results for the 12 months to 30 June last year, Suprema reported sales up 51% to E480 million. The company had grown quickly from a small family run outfit to a major supplier to supermarkets and fast food chains.