Why didn't M&S sue other stores for "copycat" caterpillar cakes?

[Star555]

www.bbc.com/news/business-56756731

M&S now suing Aldi for "Cuthbert the Caterpillar"...but why didn't they sue other stores for the their Colin the Caterpillar imitation cakes like Tesco's Curly or Sainsbury's Wiggles?

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

The aldi one is bloody delicious.

Really? No mass produced shop bought cake is that good. But a kids party cake?

This is why I don't trust people when they rave about how good Aldi is!

M&S are idiots - they’re giving Aldi a lot of publicity. I bet people will buy Cuthbert rather than Colin now.

M&S are being mentioned as much as Aldi though.

Whoever runs Aldi's social media accounts was on top from yesterday. I laughed at the Marks & Snitches tweet, I suppose there's no such thing as bad publicity.

@Neonprint

I reckon it's because Aldi absolutely take the piss with how close to the mark they go with copy cat products. I don't go in much but I'm always shocked at how much things are clearly a rip off of brands.

Or to put it another way Aldi prove that the branded products are well over priced because Aldi can produce the exact same thing with a different label for a third of the price.

@smithyca

Whoever runs Aldi's social media accounts was on top from yesterday. I laughed at the Marks & Snitches tweet, I suppose there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Aldi is still going. Today the packaging had been photoshopped to show Cuthbert behind bars!

@LIZS I just saw it 😂 I love how other supermarkets have joined in as well. I've seen Co-Op, Lidl and B&M so far.

Morrisons put a mr potato head style glasses and moustache on their Caterpillar cake!🤣

Aldi has form on copying from everyone. I guess that may have played a part in targeting them.

I'd love to know how caterpillar cake sales have been this week. I expect they have gone up for all the brands. What great marketing it's all been

@Star555

For some reason I thought Aldi had very recently launched its Cuthbert cake...but actually it has been around since 2019. Doesn't make sense why M&S would wait 2 years to initiate legal action.

I was just thinking this, why now? Maybe because it’s a lot nicer and cheaper so it’s impacting sales...

It’s actually been around longer, I bought my dd one in 2018 for her first birthday. Also bought 2 as birthday cakes at the beginning of lockdown last year for my other DDs.

All the people saying that it’s backfired on M&S and it’s great publicity for Aldi are missing the fact that M&S have probably deliberately brought the case at the time when the Cuthbert cake isn’t available in the shops, so Aldi can’t benefit from an increase in sales.

If all this news coverage has made you think, “I could murder a shop bought caterpillar cake” then the one place you won’t be buying it is Aldi - unless they can get their production lines up and running really really quickly.

@YesThisIsMe

All the people saying that it’s backfired on M&S and it’s great publicity for Aldi are missing the fact that M&S have probably deliberately brought the case at the time when the Cuthbert cake isn’t available in the shops, so Aldi can’t benefit from an increase in sales.

If all this news coverage has made you think, “I could murder a shop bought caterpillar cake” then the one place you won’t be buying it is Aldi - unless they can get their production lines up and running really really quickly.

All the supermarkets do a version though and much cheaper than M&S. They’ve just drawn attention to this fact!

All this situation has done has made me crave caterpillar cake especially the M&S one

I'd love to know what the legal departments of the non-Aldi stores that also do copycat caterpillars (Tesco, Sainsbury's, etc.) are thinking right now...are they frantically trying to prepare their own defence and have it ready in case M&S decides to sue them as well, or are they just confidently sitting there and having a right laugh at Aldi, convinced that they won't be sued because their caterpillars look significantly different to M&S's Colin?

@Star555 I think this will be part of Aldi's defence. Why just go after them when all the supermarkets have some form of caterpillar cake? How will they work out who had the original one when they've all got them, Tesco have 3 different ones alone, Curly, Carl and Callie.

Aldi recently seem to be using the same supplier as M&S. In the past month I've seen in both Aldi and M&S:

• wild venison fillet
• best ever steak pie
• gastro chicken Kiev

The ingredients are absolutely identical. M&S are probably pissed off and only thing they have on Aldi is the caterpillar.

I read they went after Aldi because they copied cuthbert down to the letter including the same amount of chocolate feet and same type of sweets. Although if you look at sainsburys version they are sailing very close to the wind too with it's colin similarities too.

@whatamesssss

Or pangolins! Although a pangolin cake would be kind of cute!

I once google imaged guinea pig cakes and some adorable cakes came up...I could get lost in that rabbit,.I mean piggyhole for hours!

@Jennifer2021

I read they went after Aldi because they copied cuthbert down to the letter including the same amount of chocolate feet and same type of sweets. Although if you look at sainsburys version they are sailing very close to the wind too with it's colin similarities too.

This is most likely as it will be all about the patent

I'd be more sympathetic if copying didn't seem to be part of Aldi's business

Aldi accused of copying pram shade www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48024089

They'll do it to any business.

I can't believe that the world has just survived a pandemic for some awful virus, and now two supermarkets have fallen out over a chocolate cake LOL what's going on

How long do you think it will be before this case is resolved? (i.e. how long to reach a verdict in court?)

I just saw this on Facebook- they’re all pretty similar.