Creekstone Farms Premium Beef

The company was founded in 1995 by John and Carol Stewart. Originally a purebred Black Angus farm in Campbellsburg, Kentucky, Creekstone Farms entered the processing business in 2003 purchasing a 450,000-square-foot (42,000 m2) processing plant in Arkansas City, Kansas. The company began processing Creekstone Farms Premium Black Angus cattle in May 2003. In the spring of 2004, it launched an additional line of Black Angus products, Creekstone Farms Natural Black Angus Beef. Stewart retired from the company in October 2007.

Creekstone Farms provides halal beef.

Creekstone Farms is currently owned by the Marubeni Corporation and was owned by Sun Capital Partners. When Stewart retired, he retained ownership of the farm in Kentucky, which has since been sold and is no longer connected to the Creekstone Farms brand.

The company reports that Japan's ban on U.S. beef began in 2003 and caused the company to lose a third of its sales, prompting the layoff of about 150 people.

Lawsuit

In March 2006, Creekstone filed a lawsuit against the USDA for refusing to allow complete testing. On March 29, 2007, Judge James Robertson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the USDA had the authority to restrict the use of biological products and to regulate diagnostic testing but that this authority did not extend to the regulation of BSE test kits. On August 29, 2008, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the district court's finding of the USDA's authority to restrict the use of biological products and to regulate diagnostic testing reversing the lower court's ruling that the USDA did not have the authority to regulate BSE test kits.