New Zealand shop owner wins right to sell Weetabix after complaints from company behind Weet-Bix

A British food store in New Zealand has been granted permission to stock Weetabix after the company behind rival cereal brand Weet-bix complained about its sale.

The producer of Weet-Bix, Sanitarium, had argued that customers at ‘A Little Bit of Britain’, a store in Christchurch, might be misled and mistake the British product with its own.

This dispute went to the High Court in New Zealand, with Sanitarium claiming that the sale of Weetabix breached the Fair Trading Act, RNZ reported.

In his decision, a Justice Gendall stated there was not a chance of customers being mistaken, due to the nature of the store being a British food shop, and it was found not to breach the Fair Trading Act.

However, it was found to breach the Trade Marks Act meaning the A Little Bit of Britain store would have to cover up the labels of any future packets of Weetabix it sells.

Sanitarium said the outcome was one which allowed it to protect its brand and was the result it had been looking for.

The argument had led to some Weetabix boxes being seized by customs, a total of 108, and these are to be destroyed.

There are going to be submissions from both parties in the case as to who is liable for costs.

In a later statement on Facebook, A Little Bit of Britain asked for suggestions of what it should name Weetabix when the label is covered.

This read: “Woohoo! It's been such a long time coming but it's finally done. You can be assured we will be getting Weetabix in our next container.

“As per the Judges [sic] ruling, we have to sticker over the Weetabix logo so please help us out and let us know below what you think we should call it.

“We were thinking 'confuse a brit' since they think we are so easily led astray.”