A Community Coffee shipment was allegedly stolen while being trucked from New Orleans to Knoxville, Tennessee, in May 2025, and the fallout has landed in federal court.
Zurich American Insurance Company filed suit May 21 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida after a coffee shipment valued at more than $132,000 went missing in 2025.
The insurance company is seeking to recover $127,029.87 it paid out following Community Coffee’s insurance claim, plus the coffee company’s $5,000 deductible, from defendant Capital Logistics Group, a Jacksonville-based logistics company, according to court documents obtained by DCN.
Zurich claims the coffee shipment was loaded onto a single trailer in May 2025, and a clean bill of lading was issued — meaning the goods were in good order when they left. The complaint alleges Capital Logistics handed the job to a third-party carrier called Big Show Logistics, LLC, and that Big Show stole the shipment, with nothing delivered or returned.
DCN reached out to Community Coffee and Capital Logistics Group for comment but had not heard back at publication time.
Founded in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1919, Community Coffee describes itself as the largest family-owned and operated retail coffee brand in the United States. The company roasts and distributes coffee, with especially deep roots in the Gulf South. The court filing does not state whether the Community Coffee shipment involved green coffee, roasted coffee or another coffee product.
The lawsuit raises a question common to stolen-load disputes: whether Capital Logistics was acting as a carrier responsible for the freight, or as a broker that arranged transport on someone else’s behalf. Zurich’s primary claim invokes the Carmack Amendment, a federal law governing carrier liability for goods lost or damaged during interstate trucking.
The coffee theft comes amid a widespread uptick in freight fraud and cargo theft affecting U.S. businesses, including coffee roasters.
Just last month, the FBI issued a public service announcement warning the trucking and logistics sectors about the rise of cyber-enabled strategic cargo theft. The agency said estimated cargo theft losses in the U.S. and Canada reached nearly $725 million in 2025, a 60% increase from 2024, matching figures from a January analysis by risk analysis firm Verisk CargoNet.
The Zurich allegations have not been tested in court, and Capital Logistics had not yet filed a response as of the initial public reporting on the case.
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