The Caterpillar Cake Wars of 2021 - an explainer for the non-Brits

[frith_in_thorns]

I have been explaining the Caterpillar Cake Wars to a couple of my friends, so thought I should make a general post. I am currently finding this extremely entertaining.



So, caterpillar cakes are a very popular form of birthday cake here in the UK. We don't generally go to bakeries and commission cakes (unless you're rich or it's for a VERY fancy occasion) -- when we want to buy a birthday cake we go to the supermarket and get one. (The tradition is that when it's your birthday, you're the one to bring a cake + goodies into work or school if you so desire.) Supermarkets have a range of generic cakes, some of which are very nice and some of which are super basic traybakes for when you want to send a cheap cake into your child's school.

Now, enter the caterpillar cake! Colin the Caterpillar Cake has been sold by M&S for 30 years last year. He is made from a thin chocolate sponge and chocolate fondant, rolled up into a log. Then coated in a chocolate outer shell and decorated with a white chocolate face and feet and some smarties on top. Nice and basic, and fairly cheap at £7. As it's such a simple (but great) design, pretty much all the supermarkets have brought out their own versions over the years. They are extremely popular for children's parties (this isn't a universal norm, but it's quite common that you have a homemade birthday cake with your family and just buy one to be a party cake), and also popular with adults for nostalgia or varying levels of irony. Many people do in fact bring them into offices for their birthdays. M&S also now do seasonal Colins, mini Colins, etc.



NOW. The other supermarkets' caterpillar cakes, as mentioned, are now under threat. M&S has recently launched a legal challenge against Aldi for copyright infringement over Cuthbert the Caterpillar. (Guardian article) Honestly, no one seems massively sure why they went for Aldi specifically over any of the other caterpillars? Someone on Twitter has done a thread comparing/ranking all the various caterpillar cakes here. I personally think the Waitrose Cecil looks way more like Colin, but probably Aldi is the one M&S think they're most likely to win against, and then they'll have precedent to stop anyone else making them too.

Aldi... have not taken this lying down. They instantly went to social media to unleash a #FreeCuthbert hashtag and a flood of memes featuring pictures of Cuthbert behind bars, in the dock at court, etc. Scroll down their Twitter. Other small businesses have got in on the act to show their support by making caterpillar-cake-themed... things. (I saw an elongated cheesecake earlier.) Memes are obviously extremely ongoing. I also deeply love this article.



So now you know. Whose side are you on? (I tried to run a poll but it keeps not working, you'll have to be boring and leave a comment instead.)

Comments

[sheron]

The side that's not trying to copyright a caterpillar!

Thanks for this XD

[frith_in_thorns]

Yeah, I'm very much against the shutting-down of the other caterpillars! Aldi is Aldi, you know? It's a cheaper version, that's their thing. People who want the real thing will still go to M&S for it.

[clevermanka]

This is hilarious, thank you for sharing. Team FreeCuthbert, all the way.

[frith_in_thorns]

You're welcome! I have seen several people expressing confusion, so thought I should bring the knowledge.

[ratcreature]

I didn't think you could copyright food products/dishes rather than their brand names. That seems extremely dubious to me.

[frith_in_thorns]

You can copyright an image, and also use of a trademarked idea, so that seems to be what they're going for - that the look is too similar and it might damage M&S's brand if someone eats a "low-quality" Cuthbert while thinking it's a Colin, and therefore has a negative opinion of the "high-quality" Colin after that.

It is, though, kinda dubious, I agree. I'm team Cuthbert.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, team Cuthbert too, even though it's kind of hard to root for discounters like Aldi the way they pressure some food producers on price and such.

M&S should just trust the influence of its packaging to do its thing, considering how much presentation and expectation spill over to taste. I mean more often than not the no name store food products are made in the same factories as the brand name ones, and the latter still sell at a higher price.

[naye]

This is HILARIOUS. I cannot believe M&S thought it would be a good move (except I definitely can because they're M&S). Also: ALDI. Of course they went after Aldi. All of this is quality entertainment and I hope Aldi's social media team gets a raise.

Funnily enough I never had any caterpillar cake even though we had cakes (or other treats) every Monday plus birthdays and goodbyes at my workplace. I guess maybe the Diet & Nutrition part of the research group name might have made my British colleagues avoid this particular cake - and at least I always thought the cake was exclusively for children! So this has been a fascinating learning experience.

[raven]

I am on team "let's enforce people's copyrights"! If it were a teeny artisan bakery rather than M&S who had invented the Colin cake and Aldi had brought out a Cuthbert version, I think people would take the opposite view, but the legal principle is the same.

[michelel72]

I'd usually join you, but am I reading right that they've let this go for something approaching 30 years? It sounds like other groceries have been copying the cake for a very long time. I know this isn't in the US, and I'm not sure if their grounds are strictly trademark or otherwise, but I'm pretty sure a US-trademark version of a case like this would fall apart pretty quickly due to longstanding lack of enforcement. (A small bakery might reasonably not have the resources to track and shut down duplications, but this is M&S versus what seems to be a commonly known replication of long standing.)

[raven]

I think it would probably fall apart here (and in the EU) as well! But it's worth bringing the litigation - at least if they fail, they know the trademark has been lost and can give up on it. I wonder if the trademark is falling due for renewal and that's why they're doing this now - it would be ten years since the last time and the situation was probably a bit different then.

[lilysea]

I am on team "You can't copyright a caterpillar cake! Caterpillars are a real thing that exist in nature!"

A Moomin cake or a Fraggle cake or a Batman cake, yes, you can copyright those.

A caterpillar cake, no!

[schneefink]

It is so nice to have harmless and fun kind of drama to enjoy xD

Personally, I think the idea of having a copyright for caterpillar cake is ridiculous, but the face does look quite similar, so I could understand a complaint against that; except to suddenly do it now after tolerating it for many years seems, uh, odd, politely put ^^

[sholio]

This continues to be amazing. :D