Valentus SlimRoast coffee supplier lawsuit claims $3.18 million owed
When I reviewed Vitae Global last week, one of the things I picked up on was the company’s supplier, Advanced Laboratories International and owner Louis Volpe, were also credited with supplying competitor Valentus with their SlimRoast coffee.
With Volpe also a named co-founder of Vitae Global, surely there was or was going to be a conflict of interest as, through Advanced Laboratories, he was directly supplying a competitor.
Turns out there’s a saga behind the formation of Vitae Global, dating back to early 2016.
Today we take a look at the origins of the beef between Valentus and Volpe, starting with a lawsuit filed by Advanced Laboratories on December 21st, 2016.
In their lawsuit, Advanced Laboratories allege that on March 25th, 2016 it entered into a supplier contract with Valentus.
As per the contract, Advanced Laboratories were to supply Valentus with two 40,124 lb containers of dry roasted coffee for $3.7 million dollars.
This included packaging of the coffee into 630,000 boxed single-serve sachets.
Advanced Laboratories purchased the first container of coffee and made up 315,000 boxes in June, 2016.
In July Valentus paid Advanced Laboratories $600,000 for 100,000 of the boxes.
According to Advanced Laboratories, it was agreed the remaining 215,000 boxes would be purchased upon delivery of boxes manufactured from the second container of coffee.
Based on this agreement, Advanced Laboratories purchased the second container of coffee in August.
Whether the coffee was manufactured into sachet boxes is unclear, but in December Valentus informed Advanced Laboratories that they would not be purchasing any more coffee.
Advanced Laboratories see this as breach of contract and are demanding $3,180,000 in damages, on top of incidental and consequential costs and prejudgment interest.
In their response and counter-claim, Valentus generally deny all of Advanced Laboratories allegations.
Valentus’ counter-claim drags Vitae Global into the fray and alleged Advanced Laboratories has
engaged in a deliberate and calculated campaign to misappropriate Valentus’ goodwill, raid its distributors, and destroy its business.
More on that tomorrow…
Update 2nd May 2017 – Valentus’ counter-claim accuses Advanced Laboratories, Vitae Global and Louis Volpe of raiding, extortion & RICO violations.
Update 16th May 2017 – As per a May 3rd order, a tentative trial date has been scheduled for December 3rd, 2018.
Update 28th February 2018 – On February 21st Advanced Laboratories and Valentus informed the court they’d reached a confidential settlement.
Consequently Advanced Laboratories lawsuit and Valentus’ counter-claims were dismissed with prejudice.
So let me see if I got this straight.
Advanced sold coffee to Valentus.
Valentus took half of the coffee, and refused the rest, despite contract, and failed to pay for most of it. (Which suggests demand was MUCH lower than projected, indicative of a bad launch?)
Then Advanced, needing an outlet for all the coffee that Valentus did NOT take, launched Vitae as a competitor to Valentus.
Is that about right?
The demand was high. There was an inconsistency in the formula if the coffee.
Nothing to due with demand being.too low. If that was the case why would vitae say they had the originaL slimroast all over their social media accounts??
They did that bevause they knew the demand for it was high.
So two questions.. why would you not purchase anymore of your number one selling product and why did Vitae spend months promoting they had the highly sought original slimroast when in fact they did not.
I’d stay tuned for part two before assuming it was a mere breach of contract.
Sounds like a case of underhanded mediocre product shafting.
I got misinformed from the Vitae company saying first it was the original formula. They vwry misleading and greedy.
Interesting to say the least when they both are copy cats of another company that started the whole weight loss coffee business.
I wouldnt trust either of these companies. Trust the ones that are the leaders not the followers.
You need to add the whole story and lawsuit into this! Your painting Mr Volpe as a victim and he far from that, also begin charge is his CEO Jane Gallenero Lee and players Steven Michelluci, Angela Foreman, and another entity owned and controlled by Louis Volpe, Team Success, LLC (“Team Success”).
Plus Mr Volpe wife Terri in the suite! My advice go download the files, it’s ALL made public.
These are not petty charges or accusations made towards Vople and the others and carry hefty charges, even time behind bars! Most likely you won’t post this! So prove me wrong! 😉
Aaaand that’s what happens when you don’t read the whole article.
Oz,
I was sent the PDF file on this case and it’s not good! Mr Volpe clearly along with his wife Terri, CEO Jane Gallenero Lee and players Steven Michelluci, Angela Foreman got caught red handed.
Plus many of us witness these folks ( CEO Jane Gallenero Lee and players Steven Michelluci, Angela Foreman) bad mouth Jordan publicly on FB and try to turn/recruit Valentus members!
I’m looking forward to what other charges might manifest and unlawful doings on Mr Volpe/ Jane G Lee might come out this! Tony
Not in the original complaint though, which is what this article covers.
What you’re talking about is covered in the followup, which is linked at the end of the article.
You’d have realized this is you read the entire thing instead of rushing to comment after skimming a few paragraphs, but I digress.
I read the whole lawsuit, all 20’s pages… Not good! I just found your sight today.
Yes I learned you have added more. I’m just saying, if one doesn’t read the whole case in it’s full context, they might miss the real intentions on what was going on, especially with Mr Volpe. Tony
Really? the only deception is from valentus. This audio says it all. this is a triple diamond telling people how they are going to deceive the people about the “original coffee”. rhonda bingham is her name and this is her own words!
This 19 seconds says it all people!
vimeo.com/214101615
watch and you decide.
I listen, a short clip that doesn’t say anything,or gives proof! I’m going to stick with what’s in the Lawsuit as for facts!
Plus many of us witness CEO Jane Gallenero Lee and players Steven Michelluci, Angela Foreman) bad mouth Jordan publicly on FB and try to turn/recruit Valentus members! Tony
I don’t sell products!
Guess we will see who deceived who. People had the new SlimRoast land on their doorsteps today.
19 second clip? What was the context?? And isnt illegal recordings in the lawsuit?
But are you also telling me vitae and their leaders didn’t deceive people with advertisements of having the original formulation when they didn’t? Over 2 months now where are all the ljb results they talk about?
Vitae/ Lean Java Bean came out saying they had the original 1.0 and telling folks to contact them get the info on this and become a seller etc, at that point the soliciting and raiding against Valentus’ network of independent representatives, and Lean Java Bean begin recruiting Valentus members to join their competing company, it was ALL over FB.
Then you had CEO Jane Gallenero Lee, Steven Michelluci, Angela Foreman, selling old SlimRoast 1.0 for 25.00 a box, with themselves in pics with said product, this was ALL over FB!
Plus CEO Jane Gallenero Lee, Steven Michelluci, Angela Foreman, and another entity owned and controlled by Louis Volpe, Team Success, LLC, bad mouthing Valentus and Mr Jordan, ( saying they could not believe what they’ve heard, referring to a tape phone call) ILLEGAL shared, once again this was said on FB!
Plus this supposed phone call clip (vimeo.com/214101615) that took place only once again goes to show phone message were most likely taped/shared and to be used against Mr Jordan by Mr Volpe for attempted extortion and illegal wiretap or recording.
This reflects badly on Mr Volpe and CEO Jane Gallenero Lee. As I stated before, the internet can become your worst enemies and self incrimination, it’s all out there, you can’t delete it! Tony
I know for a fact and I have proof that Jane was helping someone close under her whom she recruited from Valentus set up a fake person (account) so that he could recruit members from valentus to Vetae. Dirty People do dirty things KARMA!
Bah. All of the ingredients in either version are deemed useless for weight loss by UK long time ago.
Jane Gallenero Lee and Louis Volpe, are both unethical business persons and Mr Volpe known as womanizes!
Both companies are scams anyway. They both should be shut down.
They arnt selling products they are recruiting people to recruit more people to sign up for auto shipments. That’s a pyramid scam.
They don’t recruit people to sell. It’s all over any of the reps sites. They prey on stay at home moms and poorer families with one income to sign up and then make their friends sign up.
They all should be disgusted with themselves and what they do. Sell the product in a store if it’s so amazing and works?
They shipped almost expired packages, I emailed them, and they sent so called their company lawyer without clear company letter head, and no date on the letter, and not the matching batch number to my expired products.
They keep telling me it is not expired…. They don’t even provide the phone number on the website. Also, their reply is very unprofessional.
Very disappointed, not going to order again.
So here we go again with sad and slippery players in the yet to be tamed wild west of MLM.
Some of the same names keep showing up time and time again with solutions that will CHANGE YOUR LIFE but in the end, these clever people are simply helping themselves to your money and your contacts.
I don’t know how they live with themselves when they know in their heart they are stealing peoples happiness when things fall apart (they always do) but this is not the story they tell, they simply change the focus to what they are doing NOW.