Toblerone maker sues UK startup over lookalike bar for vegans

LONDON – Mondelez International is heading to the UK courts once again – over the triangular prism shape of its Toblerone chocolate bar. Less than a decade after the US confectionery company won a trademark row with Poundland over the discount retailer’s Twin Peaks chocolate bar, Mondelez’s latest fight is with a small British vegan chocolatier.Catherine’s Originals' range of O’bar chocolates, which feature a row of rounded peaks on a thin slab, are too similar in shape to Toblerone’s triangles, according to a UK intellectual property infringement claim filed on Oct 15 by Kraft Foods Schweiz Holding, a company that is part of Mondelez. “The iconic Toblerone shape is one of the most recognised and distinctive product designs in the UK and across the world,” a spokesperson for Mondelez said. “We have a responsibility to protect our trademarks and intellectual property, which we take seriously.” Kraft Foods bought Toblerone in 1990 and successfully trademarked the shape of the chocolate bar in Europe that decade. Mondelez was created in the split of Kraft Foods in 2012. Catherine Dodd, who was 18 when she launched her vegan brand in 2021, disagrees with Mondelez’s claims: the peaks on her chocolate bars are more rounded than those of Toblerone and are in line with the O theme used in other products like Catherine’s O tin and Milky O’s. “Honestly, it’s fairly frightening for a small business we’ve put so much care and hard work into building,” Dodd wrote in an emailed statement. “But being a smaller business does not mean being afraid to stand up for what we’ve created.”It is not unusual for consumer companies to sue rivals over similar versions of distinctive products. Nestle famously defeated Mondelez’s efforts to trademark the purple color used in the packaging of its Cadbury Dairy Milk bars. In turn, Mondelez blocked Nestle’s efforts to trademark the shape of its four-finger KitKat wafer.Mondelez settled its claim against Poundland in 2017 before a full trial began. The two agreed that the budget retailer could release a limited number of its Twin Peaks bars as long as it changed the colour of its packaging and turned the mountains into asymmetrical hills. Years later, Mondelez challenged Swiss-based company Cocoa Luxury over its Swissone bar. A local court in Switzerland initially ruled there was no likelihood of consumers being confused as the peaks on the smaller company’s bar were more rounded than Toblerone’s. The two parties later reached a confidential agreement that meant Swissone changed its shape and packaging, a Mondelez spokesperson wrote. Mondelez said several months of talks to find a resolution with Catherine’s, which makes its chocolate at a factory in West Sussex, have failed to yield results. Previously Mondelez had to remove the Matterhorn peak from its packaging and change its label from “of Switzerland” to “established in Switzerland” after it moved some production to Slovakia.Shares of Mondelez, which reports earnings later on Oct 30, are up more than 7% in the past 12 months. BLOOMBERG