We might just have a chocolate melt down. Talk about #firstworldproblems.
First Kraft Food, the U.S. owner of Cadbury, secretly switched up the classic Cadbury Creme Egg recipe. And now Hershey's is making headlines for banning imports of Cadbury Creme Eggs and other British chocolates.
Hershey's filed a trademark infringement suit in Pennsylvania court against Let's Buy British Imports (L.B.B.), the ones who make Cadbury chocolates overseas. According to the settlement, L.B.B. will not be allowed to bring Cadbury Eggs to the U.S. The ban also prevents other candy like Maltesers, Yorkie chocolate bars, Toffee Crisps, and KitKats that are made overseas from coming to our shores.
The ban against British chocolate comes after violatations against preexisting trademarks. For example, Yorkie is pretty much a rip off of York peppermint patty. The court also stated that British Toffee Crisp's orange wrappers were too similar to those on Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.
"It is important for Hershey to protect its trademark rights and to prevent consumers from being confused or misled when they see a product name or product package that is confusingly similar to a Hershey name or trade dress," Hershey's representative Jeff Beckman says.
But even though Americans won't be able to get their hands on British-made chocolates, the candies such as Cadbury Creme Eggs will still be sold through Hershey's since they hold exclusive rights to produce them in the U.S. The original British Eggs will be banned and Hershey's will produce the chocolates with its altered recipe, which include sugar as the main ingredients (along with PGPR and soy lecithin for longer shelf life) as opposed to the U.K.'s main ingredient, milk.
[Photo Credit: Lee McCoy/Flickr]
