Mondelez International is suing the Germany-headquartered discount food retailer Aldi over its packaging designs on snacks that it alleges mimic its own.
The US-based snacks and confectionery giant filed the lawsuit at a court in Illinois on Tuesday (27 May), seeking damages and a permanent injunction to block Aldi from using the packaging.
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Mondelez said in its complaint that Aldi’s private-label product packaging “blatantly copies and trades upon the valuable reputation and goodwill Mondelez has developed in its longstanding, highly distinctive, and well-known trade dress for numerous of its cookie and cracker snack products”.
Aldi declined to comment on the proceedings and claims when contacted by Just Food.
Mondelez maintains that the designs are “likely to deceive and confuse
consumers and dilute the distinctive quality of Mondelez’s unique product packaging, and if not stopped, threaten to irreparably harm Mondelēz and its valuable brands”.
It said it had previously contacted Aldi “on numerous occasions” about “confusingly similar packaging” and that Aldi had discontinued the “infringing products in response to Mondelez’s objections”.
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By GlobalDataMondelez added: “Defendant discontinued and/or changed certain of these infringing products in response to Mondelez’s objections. However, defendant has continued its pattern and practice of selling products in packaging which infringes the trade dress of numerous Mondelez products.”
In the filing, Mondelez provides images of its allegedly infringed products alongside another column headed “Infringing Aldi Trade Dress” with images of the Aldi brands in similar packaging.
The Mondelez brands are Oreo Cookies, Wheat Thins Original, Nutter Butter, Chips Ahoy!, Nilla Wafers and Ritz Crackers and Original Premium Saltine Crackers.
They sit opposite Aldi’s Original Chocolate Sandwich Cookies With Vanilla Filling, Thin Wheat Original Crackers, Peanut Butter Crème Filled Cookies, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Vanilla Wafers, Golden Round Crackers and Original Saltine Crackers.
Price increases made for a difficult first quarter for Mondelez, which saw prices in Europe go up 13.4%.
Volumes suffered in the three months to 31 March across all of Mondelez’s markets, even though price increases were still being implemented in Europe, Brazil and India in April, May and June, the company said in April. Pricing put in place in the first quarter was 6.6%, with a negative 3.5% impact on volume/mix.
