Unilever has sued Hampton Creek, a start-up food company that is developing animal-free alternatives to industrialised foods over the definition of mayonnaise.
The lawsuit was filed in Newark, NJ, in a federal court on October 31, seeking compensation to the tune of three times the profits of Hampton Creek for damages caused and profits lost due to false advertising by the San Francisco-based start-up.
Hampton Creek's Just Mayo, the first of such eggless products and latest target of Unilever's displeasure, is an eggless mayonnaise with major ingredients being lemon juice, canola oil and Canadian yellow peas.
The $67.4bn company, which owns Best Foods and Hellmann's brands of mayonnaise, America's best-loved sandwich spread, demanded that the start-up desist from calling Just Mayo superior in taste to Unilever-made mayonnaise and obliterate its store presence.
Unilever also objected to the eggless, plant-based version of Hampton Creek being called mayonnaise, as egg yolk had to be used to make the creamy condiment as per guidelines of the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA). But the USFDA definition of mayonnaise was given in 1957, long before 'vegan mayonnaise' meant anything.
An e-mail regarding this from Unilever stated: "We brought this lawsuit because use of the Just Mayo name blatantly misleads consumers. In fact, the product is Just NOT Mayo as it does not contain one of mayonnaise's key ingredients -- eggs -- in violation of the federal regulations that are in place to protect consumers."
Hampton Creek's founder and chief executive, Josh Tetrick, however is firm in his stance, saying that the claims of false advertising would never stick as his company uses the word "mayo" instead of "mayonnaise". But he maintained that the lawsuit would have a positive effect on his company by drawing attention to an "antiquated" food system.
In the coming weeks, Hampton Creek is planning to counter the suit, focussing on the food giant's sustainability practices.
Launched last year, Just Mayo has the backing of Bill Gates and Asia's richest man, Li Ka-Shing, and has spread at a frightening pace across the US through Walmarts, Costcos and others.
Image: Mayonnaise. Photo courtsey of Wikipedia (Transferred from Flickr via Flickr2commons)
