Raley's has been sued in a contract dispute by the company that supplies its house-brand coffee.
Bay Area Coffee Inc., which furnishes Raley's Nob Hill Trading Company and Cafe Sarks brands, sued the West Sacramento grocery chain and one of its executives, Thomas Lee.
The suit, filed in Yolo Superior Court, accuses Raley's of breaking its contract with Bay Area Coffee by cutting off purchases of one of the brands.
Raley's called the suit "meritless."
The lawsuit says Lee slandered the coffee supplier. Lee told employees of both companies that Bay Area Coffee's executives "must have bribed somebody to obtain the contract with Raley's," the lawsuit says.
Bay Area Coffee, based in Benecia, has been supplying roasted coffee to Raley's since 2002. As required by the contract, Bay Area Coffee spent $450,000 installing coffee grinders and other equipment in Raley's stores, according to the lawsuit.
The suit says Raley's, after several months of sending "mixed signals," told Bay Area Coffee on Jan. 1 that it would no longer buy the coffee being sold under the Nob Hill brand. That constitutes about 85 percent of the contract.
Asked about the lawsuit, Raley's spokesman John Segale said the two companies are in a contract dispute. Raley's says Bay Area Coffee hasn't yet provided "certain credits" owed to the supermarket chain under the contract.
Because Raley's hasn't yet been served with a copy of the lawsuit, "we have not filed our counterclaims to their meritless allegations," he added.
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
Call The Bee's Dale Kasler, (916) 321-1066.
• Read more articles by Dale Kasler
What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com
Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)
Here are some rules of the road:
• Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "Report Abuse" link to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.
• Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.
• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.
• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand.
• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.
• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.
• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.
• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.
• Don't flag other users' comments just because you don't agree with their point of view. Please only flag comments that violate these guidelines.
You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "Report Abuse" link to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.
If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them.
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "Report Abuse" link below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.