Skip to main content

You can take the bread company out of Hawaii, but you can't take Hawaii out of the bread company.



You can take the bread company out of Hawaii, but you can't take Hawaii out of the bread company.


What do you do when your favourite company that makes your favourite type of bread makes it bread outside of your favourite state? You take them to court, or at least that is what one man has done. 


A man in New York has filed a class action against bread maker, King's Hawaiian over the sweet rolls alleging that the company misled him into believing that the rolls are actually made in Hawaii. Robert Galinsky is pursuing a class-action lawsuit against the company claiming unjust enrichment, negligent misrepresentation, and fraud.


King's Hawaiian packaging



Galinsky claims that Hawaiian Rolls by itself "does not denote a roll made in Hawaii any more than a 'Moon Pie' can claim to have been baked on the moon." But the company using the original location of its factory, 'Hilo, Hawaii' in its packaging is misleading to customers. 


If Galinsky can convince the court that King's Hawaiian is misleading its customers, and quite frankly, it's a big 'if', he will face the issue that the packaging states that it is a California product.  


This isn't the first class-action lawsuit surrounding a company claiming to have Hawaiian roots, with another company, Hawaiian Host, facing a lawsuit over the fact that most of its chocolates' production occurs in California. 


But in the case of King's Hawaiian, what does the actual law state for mislabeling the state of origin? At this moment in time, the law does not extend to states inside of a country. Although some states, such as California and Hawaii have considered a 'Made in Hawaii/California' labelling protocol, these laws have never progressed from the drafting stage.


For food products, Section 304 of the Tariff Act of 1930 is the most protection that requires that most food products must bear a country-of-origin label on their packaging. However, it does not extend to individual states of the USA. This section was recently enforced in the case of Federal Trade Commission v Bollman Hat Company, where a company was labelling their hats with labels such as 'Choose American' and 'Made in the USA since 1868' even though up to 70% of their products were imported from other countries. But the distinction from the King's Hawaiian matter is that King's Hawaiian never said they were made in Hawaii.


In Australia, the Australia Consumer Law dictates a clear distinction between stating something is a product of a place and that a product is made in a specific location. In the case of 'product of' each significant ingredient and virtually all of the product's production must occur in one country whereas 'made in' merely needs to have the last transformation of the product to happen in that country. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

NEVER Read the Comments!

The Federal Court this week delivered their judgement on  Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Service Seeking Pty Ltd  [2020] FCA 1040 going all out by handing out whopping fines, legal costs orders and ordering Service Seeking Pty Ltd to establish a, undoubtedly expensive, compliance system to be monitored by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).  What did they do that was so bad?  According to the Federal Court of Australia, they created a system in which businesses could write their own customer reviews.  With a rating system less defined than what constitutes a 5-star rating in an Uber trip, businesses could write a review, assign a star rating and send it off to their customer for approval. If the customer didn’t respond or even open the email containing the review, then the review was automatically published online after a set period. By estimates of the Court, approximately 80% of the reviews published on the website for the period that this sch

OFF-BRAND - How a high-fashion brand and a local ice cream shop have come to blows over intellectual property

OFF-BRAND  How a high-fashion brand and an ice cream shop have come to blows over intellectual property In the various industries that are out there, not too many are as different as fashion and ice cream. One is involved in providing happiness, comfort and everything nice in this world and that other provides a sharp reminder that maybe that extra scoop of ice cream was too much. But suffice to say, a rift between the two industries is not something that you would expect to find.  But as hype culture and the obsessive fandom on the internet have grown, the industries have been growing closer and closer together. But sadly, not in the way you think, we are still a few years off wearable ice cream. Instead, there is now a good chance that your local ice creamery sells merchandise. Less impressive, for sure. But this has become a staple for restaurants with even just a modicum of goodwill attached to their name and why not? If customers are willing to pay an extra $50 so that people will

What are Trademark Classes

  What are Trademark Classes When you are registering a trademark, it is essential to think about what the kind of classes of object/services you want your trademark to apply to. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has designated 45 classes in which you can register a trademark. Classes 1-34 are for goods that you may produce (like food or technology) and classes 35-45 are for services (like legal or medical services). This is known as the Nice International Classification of Goods and Services and has been the method of classifying what areas a trademark is registered in over 85 countries, including Australia.  How to pick a class? When you a completing a trademark application, you must determine precisely what bounds you wish you apply to your trademark. An application for a trademark is likely to be rejected if you set the bounds to be too big and ineffective if you set the bounds to be too small. There is a sweet spot which you must find. But it is essential to kee