Egg on Face, Not in Product? Bill Gates-Backed Startup Sued Over Use of Word Mayonnaise

The battle over information supremacy continues unabated, all evidence and common sense to the contrary.

Do people really care what's in their mayonnaise, the innocuous but tasty sandwich spread?

Well, obviously the folks at Unilever do because they own the Hellman's brand which is the world's leader in this category. And some consumers seem to care, because they have been willing to buy a vegan alternative that does not contain eggs.

So it seems, in this case, that the egg came before the producer turned chicken, as it were.

Unilever is suing the vegan product start-up, which has some deep pocketed backers in Bill Gates and Li ka-Shing, Asia's wealthiest individual, and even Jerry Yang, a founder of Yahoo. What smart attorney wouldn't sue these guys? You can make money just by filing the paperwork. But the larger question is why major corporations continue to bother with this sort of expensive but, er, fruitless(?) legal exercise.

Definitions of products and services are changing, as are the contents, the uses, derivations, sources and outcomes. We live in a mash-up economy. Attempting to apply historical legal norms for contemporary problems is a sign of society's inability to cope with change. Far more productive to invest in your own alternative or to search for new ones than to defend ground that may be swept away by the tides of innovation in any event. JL

Ryan Mac reports in Forbes:

Unilever filed suit against the Bill Gates-backed food company aiming to eliminate the use of egg products in foods, over the startup’s labeling of its vegan mayonnaise arguing that Hampton Creek’s sandwich spread is not up to snuff because it doesn’t contain eggs.
A big guy is suing the little guy, and someone is going to end up with egg on their face.
Earlier this month, multibillion-dollar consumer goods corporation Unilever Unilever filed suit again Hampton Creek Foods, the Bill Gates-backed food company aiming to eliminate the use of egg products in foods, over the startup’s labeling of its vegan mayonnaise. In the back-and-f0rth over the world’s blandest condiment, the multinational food corporation is arguing that Hampton Creek’s sandwich spread is not up to snuff because it doesn’t contain eggs, a defining ingredient in mayonnaise.
The suit, filed in a New Jersey court, centers around Hampton Creek’s flagship product “Just Mayo,” a popular dressing in which plant-based formulas have replaced traditional egg components. Now sold nationally in retailers like Wal-Mart and Costco, the product has been a success with American consumers since launching late last year, threatening Unilever–the owner of popular brands Hellman’s and Best Foods–and its chokehold on the mayonnaise market.
“Hellman’s has been around for 100 years and there hasn’t been really competition for 60 years,” says Hampton Creek CEO Joshua Tetrick, who estimated that Unilever’s brands account for 60% of the U.S. consumer mayonnaise market.  ”[The lawsuit] speaks to how backwards these people think about food.”
Officials at Unilever who were contacted by email did not respond to requests for comment.
While it seems absurd that a multinational corporation would be suing over the definition of an oily, white condiment, Unilever knows that billions are at stake. By some estimates, mayonnaise is an $11.3 billion global market, one that Hampton Creek is encroaching upon with “consumer deception” and causing “serious irreparable harm to Unilever,” according to court documents.
Mayonnaise, by definition, has eggs and “mayo” is an accepted abbreviation for “mayonnaise,” says Unilever in its suit: “By calling its vegan sandwich spread ‘Just Mayo,’ Hampton Creek falsely communicates to consumers that Just Mayo is mayonnaise, when it in fact, it is not.”
For Tetrick and Hampton Creek, the suit comes at a crucial juncture in the company’s development. With its goal of improving food sustainability by finding suitable plant-based replacements for egg products, the San Francisco startup has experienced significant growth since its 2011 founding and garnered the financial support of names including Gates, Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang and Asia’s richest man, Li Ka-shing. And while it’s rumored to be raising a new round of money and is spreading into other product categories, the company is also going through growing pains: In September, high-profile hire Ali Partovi, a respected technology veteran, resigned from his role of chief strategy officer less than two weeks after joining.
The lawsuit from Unilever, which demands a name change for ‘Just Mayo’ and a halt on all retail of the product under its current moniker, may be Hampton Creek’s biggest challenge to date. Sources say that the company is exploring the possibility of hiring high-end law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner, whose cofounder David Boies was Vice President Al Gore’s head counsel in litigation relating to the 2000 Florida election recount. Tetrick did not comment on legal representatives, only saying that he thinks that Unilever will eventually withdraw its suit when it realizes its “disconnect” with reality.
Tetrick also noted that the lawsuit was not a complete surprise given Unilever’s earlier attempts to produce an egg-less mayonnaise. Documents provided by Hampton Creek showed a project within the corporation that attempted to create a spread similar to “Just Mayo” in 2006 but failed. Since then, former Unilever employees have gone on to work with Hampton Creek, among them Johan Boot, the startup’s founding vice president of research and development. He has since left the company.
While Hampton Creek has succeeded in areas that Unilever hasn’t, Tetrick, who holds a law degree from the University of Michigan, still knows he has to be wary when facing the challenge of a $116.5 billion (market cap) company. He also realizes that this will likely be the first of many lawsuits to come as the company takes a more aggressive approach in its expansion into other food categories. The company recently launched a cookie dough product and has been testing out a plant-based egg scramble for months.
“The reaction [about the lawsuit] from our network and current investors–even customers–has been positive,” says Tetrick. “They’re saying,  ’Now you know you’re doing something right.”