LOCAL food manufacturer Fun Snax Limited and Midel Distributors Limited have lost their $100-million lawsuit against Shell Company (West Indies) Limited.

The suit was brought against Shell following accusations that it had supplied the wrong kind of gas, which caused the manufactured goods to go bad, resulting in millions of dollars in losses.

The companies had in the year 2000 entered into an agreement for Shell to provide the gas used in the processing of the snacks -- corn grits, potato chips and rice balls, among other things.

In the latter part of 2000, the claimants alleged, they began receiving an unusual number of complaints about the quality of the products and a "significant" number of the snacks were returned.

The claimants felt that the goods were being "undercooked" and retaining more moisture than was acceptable because of the type of liquid petroleum gas (LPG) that was supplied.

A breach of contract and negligence suit was filed by the claimants who noted that LPG butane had been supplied instead of the agreed LPG propane. The claimants sought to recover $107,315,353, while claiming Shell did nothing to correct the problem.

In its defence, Shell said that there was no contract specifying the kind of gas to be provided. Furthermore, Shell said it had acted promptly to rectify the complaints from the claimants in or around November 2002.

Judgement was recently handed down during the Supreme Court trial which started in September 2008.

The court found that there was an agreement for the provision of a mixture of propane and butane gas. The court also found that there was no breach of contract or negligence on Shell's part -- and that allowing the baked products to remain in the oven for a while longer would have resolved the problem of undercooking.

"[The claimants] have not proven that the losses they suffered were due to the defendant supplying the LPG they had [been] contracted to provide," the judgement said.

The claimants were represented by attorneys John Graham and Glenroy Mellish, instructed by John Graham and Company. Attorneys Andre Earle, Anna Gracie and Ms T Jeffery, instructed by Rattray, Patterson, Rattray, appeared for the defendant.

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