M&S and Aldi have both responded to the Colin the Caterpillar vs Cuthbert the caterpillar cake clash ahead of court action.
M&S and Aldi have come head to head in a battle of Caterpillar cakes - and it looks like neither of the supermarkets is willing to back down in a row over copyright.
Marks & Spencer has launched legal action against Aldi, claiming the low-cost supermarket has infringed the copyright of its Colin the Caterpillar cake, which it sells for £4.99 - a fraction of the M&S price.
M&S has lodged an intellectual property claim with the High Court this week over its rival’s Cuthbert the Caterpillar cake.
Colin was launched by Marks & Spencers back in 1990 and since then the brand has gone from strength to strength and the store even added by offering shoppers the chance to buy girlfriend Connie the Caterpillar cake, as well as launching numerous colin-themed snacks including cake jars, cake-sized colin faces, and even Easter makeovers of the tasty treat.
The supermarket says the similarity between the two products leads consumers to believe they are of the same standard. It says it has allowed Aldi ‘ride on the coat-tails’ of M&S’s reputation and wants the chain to remove the product from sale and agree not to sell anything similar in the future.
M&S has three trademarks relating to Colin, which the retailer believes means Colin has acquired and retains an enhanced distinctive character and reputation. A spokesman said, ‘Because we know the M&S brand is special to our customers and they expect only the very best from us, love and care goes into every M&S product on our shelves. So we want to protect Colin, Connie and our reputation for freshness, quality, innovation and value.’
On its website, M&S states, 'From office parties to weddings and online celebrations during lockdown, Colin is EVERYONE’S go-to party favourite! Our signature Colin the Caterpillar chocolate cake was launched in 1990 and since then we have manufactured more than 15 million Colin the Caterpillars. We were the first retailer to sell a caterpillar, with many supermarkets since trying to emulate this crowd-pleasing cake.'
And with the news that M&S is taking court action against Aldi over their replica cake, M&S took to social media to call upon the help of fans via the official Colin the Caterpillar Instagram, but uploading a snap of Colin and captioned it, 'You might have seen I’m in the news…I won’t be commenting 😉 But please continue to show me your support, it means a lot #OGColin'
And fans reacted to the post by showing their support. One wrote, 'It will never taste as good as Colin. None of the copies do' another put, 'We won’t be cheating on Collin with that rip off from Aldi' and a third added, 'We love M&S Colin the caterpillar 🐛 wouldn’t have anything else.'
Meanwhile, team Aldi have mocked M&S by trolling the store in the cheekiest way. They uploaded a simple tweet that mocked the M&S signature 'This is not just any...this is...' slogan. It read, 'This is not just any court case, this is... #FreeCuthbert'.
And it stirred up further talk with a later tweet which read, 'Just Colin our lawyers #FreeCuthbert' it added.
And it's got fans talking. One Aldi shopper wrote, 'Campaign T Shirts in the middle aisle next week?' another put, 'Here’s
@AldiUK's defence line-up!' and shared a collection of the other Colin dupe cakes being sold in other supermarkets.
Aldi isn't the only supermarket to sell their own take on a caterpillar cake - Asda sells Clyde and Freida, Sainsbury's sells Wiggles the Caterpillar, and Morrisons are selling Morris, Curly is stocked in Tesco and Charlie is on sale in the Co-op.
And fans are confused as to why Aldi is being sued in response to its copycat cake. One wrote, 'I don’t understand why it’s ok for Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda to replicate but not Aldi?'
