Dive Brief:
- Maxim Marketing's breach of contract suit against ConAgra and Trader Joe's, filed after the food manufacturer and grocer allegedly cut the food marketing firm out of its peanut butter-filled pretzel supply chain, is taking a turn as a man claiming he is the creator of the pretzels has stepped forward.
- Bruce Gutterman says he isn't interested in making any financial gains from the lawsuit and that he only wants credit for creating the peanut butter-filled pretzels.
- In the lawsuit, Maxim claims it created the peanut butter-filled pretzels in 1988, but Gutterman says he pioneered the recipe, which was first manufactured by Maxim-distributed J. Reisman & Sons.
Dive Insight:
Leave it to a pretzel suit to become a twisted tale of middlemen and mistaken attribution. Maxim says that it hired ConAgra to make the pretzels for Trader Joe's, but the food manufacturer cut it out of the fold and began selling the pretzels directly to the grocer — and at a lower price. Gutterman doesn't care about that, though. He just wants people to know the pretzels were his creation, and he says over a dozen manufacturers will back him up.
