British celeb chef Jamie Oliver, a food blogger and ABC News have been sued by a US beef-processing worker who claims their use of the term “pink slime” lost him his job.
Bruce Smith, 58, was one of about 750 people fired by Beef Products Inc, maker of lean, finely textured beef.
He is seeking $70,000 in damages, saying the company and workers were "maligned" by the "unfair" phrase, according to the report carried by BBC news.
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The firm closed three plants and fired workers at its South Dakota office.
Lean finely textured beef is made from beef heated and spun in a centrifuge to separate the meat from the fat, before the final product is treated with a puff of ammonium hydroxide gas to kill any bacteria.
In an episode in April 2011 of his Food Revolution show, Oliver spun beef scraps in a washing machine and doused them with ammonium hydroxide to illustrate the process, referring to the finished product as "pink slime".
The US Department of Agriculture eventually chose to allow schools to stop serving the product.
The company, which had produced 350,000 tons of the substance each year, insists LFTB is a "significant, safe and reliable source of lean beef meat" and that the ammonium hydroxide is not considered an ingredient according to a report carried by Sky News.
Smith, formerly senior counsel and director of Environmental, Health and Safety at Beef Products Inc, filed his lawsuit in Dakota County District Court, Nebraska.
The filing names Jamie Oliver, food blogger Bettina Siegel, ABC News, its journalists Diane Sawyer and Jim Avila and 10 other unnamed defendants.
"Defendant Oliver proceeded to use his celebrity chef media notoriety to place pressure on American fast food company McDonald's, and others, to immediately stop using (lean finely textured beef) LFTB ground beef in its retail menu food products," the lawsuit alleges.
Siegel, in a blog post was “confident” the first amendment protects rights of all citizens against “meritless attempts at censorship like this one.”
Beef Products Inc has sued ABC news for $1.2bn separately for defamation.
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