An $800 shipment of prosciutto and cured beef bound for a Manhattan kosher supermarket arrived chewed apart, soaked in animal waste and unsellable after a four-day journey through the U.S. Postal Service system. The boxes landed at Six60One, a kosher supermarket at 661 Amsterdam Avenue, with a gaping hole torn into the packaging and rat droppings scattered inside.
Jason Felix, who described the scene to the New York Post, said the damage was unmistakable. “It's disgusting! You can see the hole from the outside and it stinks — inside there's rat poop and whatever else,” he said, identifying the culprit as rat activity that apparently took hold somewhere during transit. Felix said the high-end product could not be kept in inventory once the shipment was compromised.
Six60One is a 6,000-square-foot kosher grocery that opened in January 2025 on the site of the former Seasons market under owner Itzik Benabou, according to local reporting from West Side Rag, which places the store on Amsterdam Avenue between West 92nd and 93rd Streets on the Upper West Side — not the Upper East Side, as some initial coverage described it.
A Four-Day Trip From Florida Goes Wrong
The meat came from Ben's Best Charcuterie, a Bradenton, Florida producer of Glatt Kosher and Halal cured meats founded by French-trained chef Benjamin Lapin, a Culinary Institute of America graduate who previously worked as a sous chef at a top Paris kosher restaurant, per a profile in The Jewish Voice & Opinion. The company had been expanding its reach, having landed a five-figure export deal with United Kingdom buyers in 2025 following a Southern United States Trade Association mission in Houston.
Some of the lost packages retailed for $30 per two-ounce portion, with gourmet meats in the shipment selling for as much as $240 per pound, per the Post's reporting. USPS tracking data showed the package passed through five postal locations over four days on its route from Miami to the Upper West Side, including a one-day stop at a Midtown Manhattan distribution center. The delivery date was delayed along the way.
Company Eats the Loss, Then Gets a Rejection
Ben's Best Charcuterie ended up discarding $808 worth of contaminated meat and refunded Six60One's client directly. The company filed an insurance claim with USPS, and that claim was declined. Doug Lapin, CEO of Ben's Best Charcuterie, called the rejection baffling. “USPS rejecting a claim is very frustrating. They have not given any valid reason,” he said, adding that rats stealing meat from the company's boxes was a first for the business. A USPS representative separately told the Post the agency could not locate any claim filed by the company regarding the issue.
The denial lines up with federal postal rules that make these kinds of claims notoriously difficult. Under USPS Domestic Mail Manual Section 609, indemnity claims for insured mail are explicitly non-payable for spoilage of perishable items or improper packaging, according to Postal Explorer. Standard Priority Mail shipments also only include up to $100 of automatic merchandise insurance by default, with higher coverage requiring additional purchased insurance and documented proof that the package was prepared to withstand normal handling.
Federal food safety guidance adds another layer to why the meat had to be tossed rather than salvaged. USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service guidelines require perishable mail-order meats to ship with proper refrigerants like dry ice or cold packs, and mandate that any product exposed to pest contamination or unsafe temperatures be immediately discarded.
The Package's Postal Route
USPS tracking showed the package passed through five postal locations over four days, including a one-day stop at a Midtown Manhattan distribution center. Citywide 311 rodent complaints have declined, though complaint counts reflect reports rather than a census of rat populations.
Citywide, NYC 311 rodent complaints dropped 21.2% from 39,726 in 2024 to 31,312 in 2025, according to City Rat Index data, marking two straight years of decline. Manhattan saw an even steeper drop in the first half of 2026, with complaints falling 40.9% compared to the same period in 2025. That citywide decline comes amid the city's Rat Mitigation Zone program.
Still, those municipal gains apply to street-level conditions rather than the inside of postal sorting facilities, where a delayed package can sit for a day in an enclosed space before continuing its route. For Ben's Best Charcuterie, the result was a shipment that arrived on the Upper West Side half-eaten and unsellable, with no payout yet in sight.
