“The Americans Are Coming, The Americans Are Coming:
Hide yo Cadbury, Hide yo Yorkies, Hide yo Maltesers!”
It’s that time of year again, Valentine’s Day and Easter both falling within two months of each other. The demand for chocolate for your significant other and to fill those commercialized Easter baskets for your kids. Unfortunately, the plain old Hershey chocolate bars are going to have to do, the shelves are going to be bared of all British imported Cadbury chocolates and candies.
People, not only British Citizens now living in the United States (expatriates, or expats) seeking their creature comforts of home, but also American citizens (anglophiles), who have come to love the British imported candies, have raised arms about the petty lawsuit the US chocolate giant brought up in court claiming “brand confusion” and copyright infringement. Hershey has the rights in the United States to sell York, Cadbury, Kit Kat and Rolo trademarks as well as Maltesers, and is suing because, “Toffee Crisp's orange packaging was too similar to Reese's peanut butter cups and that Yorkie bars were too confusing to people looking for York Peppermint Patties”.
The reason for the outrage is those buying the British imported chocolates and candies claim that the American made Cadbury chocolate is not the same quality; it doesn’t taste the same as English Cadbury chocolate, frequently calling it an “inferior product”.
Fans of the ‘proper’ Cadbury chocolates and candies have started campaigns and petitions for Hershey not to ban the British imports. They got #BoycottHershey trending on social media and have even threatened throwing Hershey chocolate and candy products into bodies of water as their own version of the Boston Tea Party in protest.
To the chagrin of all Cadbury lovers, Hershey won the lawsuit against LBB Imports, barring the British chocolates from the United States, causing loyal fans to stockpile and hoard their beloved British sweets, even sending notes to friends and family in the UK to send them care-packages of their treasured candies.
Even though the imported goods only totaled $50 million of the billions that Hershey makes yearly, the loss of the imported goods are going to hit small British import shops and chocolate specialty stores hard. The niche groups of expats and anglophiles have nowhere to get their loved chocolates and candies now.