Chocolate. Yum. Caramel. Yum. Put them together. Yum! Gooey and delicious. I can’t think of a better afternoon treat.
I know how the conversation went. Hershey’s counsel was all, “Oh HELL no you didn’t just do that.” Then Mars’s counsel was all, “Bitch please.”
Seriously, I hate claims like this for two reasons:
1. They are generally nonsense. Are people really going to buy a Dove product accidentally when they wanted a Reese’s product? Doubtful.
2. They are generally necessary. If you don’t defend your branding and intellectual property then you lose control of it very quickly.
It’s a double-edged sword.
Amplify’d from mobile.confectionerynews.com
The Hershey Company has sued Mars for allegedly mimicking the packaging design of its Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups by using a similar orange color and pack design for Dove peanut butter milk chocolate Promises.
The companies have clashed previously over Mars’ use of an orange color that Hershey considered to be too similar to its trademark shade, after Mars sued Hershey for copyright infringement, among other claims. They settled out of court in August in a court-ordered settlement conference.
Hershey’s assistant general counsel, global IP, Lois Duquette sent Mars a cease-and-desist letter dated November 3, which said: “It can come as no surprise to Mars that Hershey, having objected to the color of the individual Dove peanut butter chocolate wrappers and filed a counterclaim to obtain a change of that color, would have a serious problem with Mars’ revising the outer package to add orange as a substantial background color.”
The Hershey Company objects to Mars’ use of orange as a predominant background color and has asked the company not to use color combinations of orange, yellow and brown/tan. It claims that a new packaging design for Mars’ peanut butter milk chocolate Promises, which features an orange diagonal wave against a brown background, constitutes trademark infringement and dilution, and unfair competition.
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Seeing this sort of thing fills me with wonder and dread at the same time. The big question about genetically modified plants is still out there. Let’s be serious – we don’t know what the long-term impacts could be versus natural cocoa, and there may be no difference at all. We already know that chocolate is not a great thing to eat in mass quantities, so this may be a moot point.
However, the level of scientific knowledge here is staggering.
Will it really help cocoa growers? By the time genetically modified trees are planted and start producing fruit, we may already be greeting our ape overlords. It just seems so far off. It seems to me that this plan of planting more trees will reduce the world price of cocoa significantly, making it harder for farmers to produce enough cocoa to sustain themselves. On the other hand, losses to disease would likely drop off significantly.
It’s a mixed bag, just like everything else in life, I reckon.
Amplify’d from www.confectionerynews.com
A breakthrough in cocoa genetics by a collaboration involving Mars, USDA and IBM will accelerate research into the production of trees that can better resist drought, disease and pests, and has met with an enthusiastic welcome from leading cocoa scientists in the UK.
The partnership, which includes scientists based at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the US Department of Agriculture and Science as well as researchers working at IBM’s Thomas J Watson Research Center, has achieved preliminary sequencing of the cocoa genome.
The team said it will benefit not only the chocolate industry, but cocoa growers in West Africa, a region where 70 per cent of the world’s cocoa is produced, and in other tropical zones.
Fungal diseases can destroy seed-bearing pods and wipe out up to 80 per cent of the cocoa crop, and cause an estimated $700m in losses each year.
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