Utah-based cookie company “Crumbl” is suing two of its competitors: “Crave” and “Dirty Dough.”
“We did not expect it,” Crave co-founder Trent English said. “We’re aware of the existence of Crumbl; our attitude with Crave is to kind of keep our nose down, focus on our business.”
In the lawsuit, Crumbl claims infringement, saying both cookie stores are riding the coattails of the “valuable goodwill and reputation” and brand identity associated with Crumbl.
“We received… a letter essentially with several different accusations that we felt weren't accurate," Dirty Dough co-owner Wade Rasmussen said. "With that being said, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion and Crumbl certainly is able to have their own opinion, but we were definitely surprised."
Crumbl also claims both brands copied their packaging, but Crave and Dirty Dough both say that’s not the case.
"We couldn’t be more different," English said. "Crumbl's famous for their pink box, their rectangular box. Ours is black with metallic gold, and it's square — not a whole lot of confusion there, at least from our perception."
But one Crumbl franchise owner says he’s not going to let that roll.
"When I read the comments and it's like, 'big, bad, corporate America beating down on the little guy who is just trying to get by — I mean, that's me! I am the little guy," said John Schefer. "I have a few Crumbl franchise locations, but we were one of the first ones in Utah. You have a bunch of entrepreneurs that are out of business or don't have a chance."
As for the future of the case, Crave and Dirty Dough say they’re going to keep working…and the publicity, is the icing on the cake.
"The way we feel is that cookies have been around for a long long time," Rasmussen said. "Cookies aren't something that you can really patent or trademark so we feel like we’ve done nothing wrong at all, and so we’re just going to keep going and keep growing the business the best way we can."
"I personally don’t have anything against anyone involved in this," English added. "Crumbl is a fantastic company, they’ve done a fantastic thing, they have a fantastic product — as is dirty dough. My hopes for the lawsuit is that we can find some sort of peaceful resolution and we can all continue operating as usual and have fair and healthy competition going forward."
