H-E-B’S fight over cleaning wipes set for court
As the coronavirus roared through Texas last spring, H-E-B sought out distributors of surface cleaning products to meet unprecedented demand from its customers.
H-E-B says it struck a deal in July with a Beaumont partnership to supply the San Antonio grocery chain hundreds of thousands of canisters of Bioerase antimicrobial surface wipes.
The arrangement quickly deteriorated, however, with the grocer alleging Maverick International Ltd. failed to deliver the quantities ordered and missed deadlines.
H-E-B now is suing Maverick for breaking its purchase-order agreement, and seeks more than $1 million in damages. The case was filed last week in state District Court in San Antonio.
H-E-B agreed to buy nearly 599,000 canisters, the suit says, while Maverick alleges the grocer committed to buy 500,000 canisters a month over a 12-month period — for a total of 6 million units.
Jerry Nelson, a Maverick official, hinted the partnership may be filing its own complaint.
“Well, I guess probably within the next week or two you may see another one, and you'll be shocked,” Nelson said. “It won't be for that chump change” — a reference to the damages H-E-B seeks in its lawsuit.
H-E-B spokesman Valentino Lucio described Maverick as a vendor that “consistently failed to honor its commitments in a timely manner.” H-E-B was left without the products to fulfill customer needs, costing it sales, he said in an email.
“While H-E-B has satisfied its
commitments and made every attempt at reaching a compromise, we cannot sit back and allow others to make unreasonable demands and threaten litigation,” Lucio added. “We would prefer to not go to court, but H-E-B must seek assistance to resolve this dispute based on meritless claims.”
Nelson referred questions to Beaumont lawyer Glen Morgan, who also owns half of Maverick. Morgan didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Maverick identifies itself on a website as the worldwide distributor of Bioerase. The ingredients in its wipes include citric acid, lemon grass extract, water and soap bark. The wipes are bleach-free. There are 160 wipes in each canister.
In a June email, H-E-B’S lawsuit says, Maverick represented that it could provide 500,000 canister units
of wipes a month.
The following month, HE-B says it issued a series of purchase orders for about 599,000 canisters. It expected to get the canisters in August.
Maverick delivered 56,000 Bioerase canisters in August — falling short of its promise by more than 500,000 units, H-E-B alleges.
It took Maverick 12 weeks to fulfill H-E-B’S first set of purchase orders, according to the lawsuit.
The chain adds the late deliveries were “harmful to both parties” as it “significantly diminished the opportunity” for Bioerase to “gain product equity and consumer confidence in the context of the scarcity of related product.”
The grocer also blames
Maverick’s inability to fulfill purchase orders for creating an “inventory back-up” for the chain, the complaint says. The suit doesn’t mention how many canisters HE-B received.
H-E-B says it has had to “take losses” on the sale of Bioerase. The product was marked down at one of its stores Tuesday to $7.99 from $9.98. There were coupons offering an additional $2.50 off. That would bring the price for each canister to $5.49 — a 45 percent reduction.
H-E-B wants the court to enter a judgment declaring the chain fulfilled it obligations to Maverick and that the grocer did not commit to purchasing 6 million canisters.