Incredible? Impossible Foods prevails against Nestle

Redwood City / CA. (ifi) A prominent European Union court granted Impossible Foods Inc. a preliminary injunction this week, ordering the global food conglomerate Nestle S.A. to stop using the product name «Incredible Burger.» The District Court of The Hague ruled 27 May that the use of «Incredible Burger» in Europe infringed upon Impossible Foods’ ImpossibleTM trademarks, including Impossible BurgerTM, and was likely to confuse customers.

As a result, Nestle subsidiaries in Europe are prohibited from branding products «Incredible Burger.» If they fail to remove the infringing branding within four weeks, each of 10 separate Nestle subsidiaries involved in the case would be subject to a penalty of EUR 25,000 per day – a companywide penalty of up to EUR 250,000 per subsidiary during the duration of the injunction.

«People specifically seek out Impossible Burger because it’s a superior product unique in the world of plant-based food,» said Dana Wagner, Impossible Foods’ Chief Legal Officer. «While we applaud other companies’ efforts to develop plant-based products, we don’t want consumers confused by simulacra. We’re grateful that the court recognized the importance of our trademarks and supported our efforts to protect our brand against incursion from a powerful multinational giant.»

Info
  • Prominent European Union court rules in favor of Impossible Foods in trademark infringement case against Nestle, world’s largest food company
  • Ruling prohibits several Nestle subsidiaries throughout Europe from marketing «Incredible Burger» and subjects a penalty of EUR 25,000 per day if the offending branding remains on the market
  • Impossible Foods seeks to protect consumers’ right to transparency and the court believes that Nestle deliberately attempted to confuse consumers into buying their product by imitating Impossible Foods’ name, visual identity, and other branding cues

Innovation – not imitation

Impossible Foods makes meat from plants – with a much smaller environmental footprint than meat from animals. The U.S.-based company uses modern science and technology to create wholesome and nutritious food and feed a growing population sustainably.

The plant-based Impossible Burger is sought out by consumers globally because of its unique taste, texture, mouthfeel and cooking characteristics that rival ground beef from cows. Impossible Burger is the result of nearly a decade of basic science and hard-core research and development in the company’s headquarters in California’s Silicon Valley.

Named Inc. Magazine’s company of the year and one of Time Magazine’s 50 Genius companies, Impossible Foods has an unrivaled intellectual property portfolio with hundreds of patents and patents pending. Its intellectual property includes methods to decode and reverse-engineer the molecular foundations and entire sensory experience of animal-derived meat, including how it tastes, cooks, sizzles and smells – and how to recreate the experience without animals.

In its ruling, the European court endorsed the validity of the Impossible BurgerTM trademark and noted the visual, phonetic and conceptual similarities between that trademark and Nestle’s «Incredible Burger» branding and it cited considerable evidence that consumers and commentators were actually confused by the similarity in names. The court also stated that Nestle, the world’s largest food company, appeared to have deliberately tried to impede Impossible Foods’ entry into the European market hoping to capitalize on the strength of Impossible Foods’ brand by promoting its own plant-based foods under a similar name.

Addendum: Similar name brought great success

No matter how much ambition is put into research and development: the plant-based burger business is booming. As we know from a press release of Nestle Germany, the nationwide listing of the vegan meat alternative in the food trade a few weeks after sales start at the end of April 2019 let the sales figures shoot up. «The demand is enormous. We have extended the production at short notice by an additional shift», said Garden Gourmet marketing boss Christian Adams at the end of June 2019. The «Incredible» Burger was quickly listed at Rewe, Edeka, the Hit markets, Tegut, Globus, Bünting and Bela. In addition, there were around 1’500 McDonald’s units, which have been offering the patties from Garden Gourmet as «Big Vegan TS» ever since.

bakenet:eu