Month: February 2020

Do Plaintiff’s Allegations Against Co-Packer Cut the Mustard

Mustard Girl, a gourmet mustard company founded by Jennifer Conner, sued its co-packer Olds Products Co. of Illinois (in Cook County Circuit Court, No. 2020L002316) for (1) trade secret misappropriation; (2) breach of contract; (3) tortious interference with prospective; business expectancy; (4) promissory estoppel; and (5) unjust enrichment.

According to the Complaint, Olds used Mustard Girl’s formula to create private label brands for two of Mustard Girls’s largest customers. Olds also caused Mustard Girl to miss winning a gold medal from the National Mustard Museum and losing a major national account by filling Mustard Girl’s bottles from the dregs left over after filling bottles for Olds products first. Finally Olds abruptly terminated its relationship with Mustard Girl at the cusp of its busy season, allegedly telling Mustard Girl “This is how we put people out of business!”

All of this came to light because Mustard Girl was contacted by a sympathetic employee of Olds who had been apologetic about the way Olds
had treated Mustard Girl.

Small food companies like Mustard Girl depend upon co-packers to make and help distribute their products. Mustard Girl appeared to handle the relationship appropriately, entering into a confidentiality agreement with Olds. Although Mustard Girl should have put the agreement in a sage place, because she apparently lost it. Hopefully this lapse will not damage Mustard Girl’s claim. In retrospect, Mustard Girl probably could have negotiated a longer notice period, and probably should have been more in touch with its customers, and been more on top of sales volumes so that it could discover its co-packer’s misdeeds sooner,

If Olds behaved as it is alleged to have behave, one would hope that the law will provide a remedy to Mustard Girl. In the meantime Mustard Girl’s plight is a warning to small food companies to actively manage their relationships with co-packers.

Hot Sauce v. Pot Sauce

On February 13, 2020, the U.S. District Court enjoined Sulaiman Waleed Rodriguez from using TAPATIO’s marks in selling its THC laced sauces.

The dispute began nearly a year ago on March 11, 2019, when Tapatio Foods sued for trademark infringement, unfair competition, and dilution arising from defendants sales of hot sauce laced with THC.

Tapatio’s trademark versus Defendants’ trademark.

After the filing an Amended Complaint in April 2019, the defendants defaulted, resulting in the Court entering judgment last week.

Hilton Sued for $4.6 Million for Infringing Restaurant Name for Six Months

The owners of the Salitre Meson Costero restaurant in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, have sued Hilton International of Puerto Rico Inc., in the U.S. District Court for Puerto Rico [3:19-cv-02165] for trademark infringement and unfair competition by using the name Salitre and then Salitre de Caribe for a restaurant in its Caribe Hilton hotel. Plaintiffs are seeking an injunction, $4 million in damages, and $650,000 for corrective advertising.

Hilton used the name briefly in 2019, but promptly changed the name to Nectar de Caribe after plaintiffs initially complained, a move that plaintiff’s claim “proves that the Defendants have recognized the willful confusion they caused.” Plaintiff’s further complain that Defendants keep using the menus intended to evoke the views, feelings, environment and characteristics that “Salitre Meson Costero” evokes, including “the view, the palm trees and the whole tropical sea motif.”

Menu from the Necctar Del Caribe accused of evoking the views, feelings, environment and characteristics of plaintiff’s Salitre Meson Costero.

sinceslicedbread

The name of this blog, Sinceslicedbread is an homage to the idiom “the greatest thing since sliced bread,” which refers to a particularly significant innovation. It is believed that phrase evolved from the a July 6, 1928, advertisement by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri, touting their new sliced bread as the “greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped.”

July 6, 1928, Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune, page 6.

By 1930, Wonderbread was selling sliced bread with a similar slogan, and the fanfare for sliced bread eventually resulted in the idiom “the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

Sliced bread itself owes its origin to Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa, who worked for many year to invent an automated bread slicer. Otto struggled to sell his invention until he solved the problem of the sliced bread quickly becoming stale, by wrapping the thinly sliced loaves in wax paper immediately after slicing. Chillicothe Baking Company was his first customer, and that machine is now in the Smithsonian.

Otto Rohwedder’s first bread slicing machine now in the Smithsonian.

Otto then applied for a patent and in 1932 received U.S. Patent No. 1,867,377.

U.S. Patent No. 1,867,377.

Commedian Red Skelton is usually credited with the first published use of the phrase, telling a Maryland newspaper in 1952 that “television is the greatest thing since sliced bread.”