Liability Concern When Selling Grass-Fed Beef Direct
US - Grass-fed beef producers interface with the public. For many, direct marketing meat is a whole new realm n one that poses additional risk that needs to be properly addressed to protect the operation.Most beef producers hold large amounts of assets (mostly in land) that could be at risk if a claim is filed against them.
Most producers have assumed that their farm liability policy will cover this extended farm business. However, cautions Glenn Nader with University of California Extension, “Most insurance agents have stated that their general farm liability packages do not cover processed foods or off-farm retail activity. In these cases, the policy does not provide product liability coverage that producers need if they are selling meat products to the public.”
Nader, a farm advisor for Yuba, Sutter and Butte counties, is part of a project in California promoting grass-fed beef (http://www.csuchico.edu/agr/grassfedbeef/mission.html).
He says having on-farm sales or farm tours that bring the public on the farm in order to sell grass-fed beef (of any other niche product) may require a business liability policy. Some farmers markets will also require product and business liability policies and may also ask that they are listed as “additional insured.”
Source: Agriview