Unilever, Suing Over Rival’s Use of ‘Mayo,’ Changes Own Website (original) (raw)
Business|Unilever, Suing Over Rival’s Use of ‘Mayo,’ Changes Own Website
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- Nov. 16, 2014
Josh Tetrick, the founder of Hampton Creek, with its eggless, mayonnaiselike spread.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Last Friday, changes suddenly began appearing on websites associated with mayonnaise.
The word “dressing” was added to comments that consumers had posted referring to Hellmann’s mayonnaise dressing with olive oil as simply “mayonnaise.”
And a post to Pinterest that had promoted Hellmann’s creamy balsamic mayonnaise dressing as “mayonnaise over the top in taste” vanished — although it still can be seen on Twitter.
The changes represented another round in the fight between the consumer product and food giant Unilever and a tiny start-up, Hampton Creek, which it has sued over the eggless, mayonnaiselike spread Hampton Creek has been selling as Just Mayo for a little less than a year.
Unilever claims that the word “mayo” and the image of an egg cracked by a pea shoot that Hampton Creek uses on its packaging fraudulently leads consumers to believe the product contains eggs. It also contends that consumers equate “mayo” with mayonnaise, which must contain eggs under the standard set by the Food and Drug Administration in 1957.
“They have an egg on their package but not in their product — they’re just not mayo,” Mike Faherty, vice president for foods of Unilever North America, said Sunday in the company’s first comments about the case.
The F.D.A. has even gotten involved, contacting Hampton Creek. No other information about the agency’s role was available.
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