Issues have turned bitter for 2 pickle manufacturers as one firm’s coveted household recipe was allegedly used to create a copycat line for Amazon-owned Entire Meals.
Grillo’s Pickles, a Boston-based pickle firm that boasts a century-old household recipe on the forefront of its model, has filed a lawsuit towards Patriot Pickle, accusing the Florida-based firm of violating its settlement and utilizing Grillo’s recipes to create a “practically similar” line for Entire Meals underneath the Entire Meals 365 label.
The lawsuit claims that Patriot Pickle had entry to Grillo’s recipes and tools, used similar substances, and performed natural acid profile checks — all of which the Boston-based model says violated contracts between Grillo’s and Patriot in addition to the Defend Commerce Secrets and techniques Act and the Florida Uniform Commerce Secrets and techniques Act.
Patriot has till July 18 to reply to the criticism, which was filed on June 27.
The pickle partnership started in 2012 — Patriot dealt with the manufacturing, packaging, labeling, and transport of Grillo’s pickles, which, per the lawsuit, is the place the corporate allegedly realized of and later stole the key recipe used within the Entire Meals line. The union between the manufacturers was terminated in 2021 by Grillo’s, the criticism notes, however Grillo’s claims Patriot didn’t return all of its copies of the recipes.
Grillo’s president, Adam Kaufman, expressed disappointment and accused Patriot Pickle of betraying their decade-long partnership.
“Patriot Pickle is attempting to revenue off of Grillo’s 100-year-old household recipe and our commerce secrets and techniques,” Kaufman mentioned in an announcement. “It is a huge violation of belief and a disappointment that after practically a decade of partnership, our former co-packer, Patriot Pickle, has violated our agreements and is producing an almost similar line of pickles for one among our greatest retailers, threatening to completely harm our enterprise.”
Grillo’s is in search of emergency injunctive aid, a everlasting injunction, and damages, because it believes Patriot Pickle’s actions threaten to “cripple” its enterprise and buyer base “irreparably.”
That is the second lawsuit filed by Grillo’s towards Patriot this 12 months.
In January, Grillo’s sued Patriot Pickle, Wahlburgers, and ARKK Meals Firm for allegedly falsely labeling and advertising and marketing Wahlburgers pickles as “recent” and “all pure” after they contained synthetic preservatives.
Patriot Pickle informed Entrepreneur it has no touch upon the present scenario.
