Caterpillar Cake War

In what has been described as the “battle of the caterpillars”, Marks & Spencer has filed an intellectual property case against discount supermarket chain Aldi alleging infringement of its ‘Colin the Caterpillar’ trademark by the latter’s ‘Cuthbert the Caterpillar’ cake.

What is not clear is why M&S specifically went after Aldi, given that almost every supermarket chain in the UK has its own version of ‘caterpillar cake’.  To quote from a tongue-in-cheek piece from The Guardian:

More mysterious is why it has gone for Aldi. Every major supermarket has its own caterpillar cake, named to suit its brand. Tesco has Curly: simple, effective, a bit route one. Asda has Clyde, which sounds like someone came up with it on a hangover. Waitrose has Cecil, who you just know has strong views about Classic FM. Sainsbury’s deviates from the alliterative rule to offer Wiggles, which violates a key principle and brings off-puttingly to mind the movement of the insect. (As an aside, it’s curious that every chocolate caterpillar sounds like a war poet.) Why is M&S picking on Aldi rather than the others? I think we know: it’s German.

Meanwhile, Aldi took to Twitter with a series of rib-tickling tweets, including one about this “packaging update”:

Adding to the fun, Lidl Ireland shot off this tweet: