Herbivorous Butcher wants the right to use “vegan butcher” themselves, or for the phrase to remain un-trademarked so other small retailers can keep using it.
Vice report…
If you Google the words “vegan butcher,” the top result is for the Herbivorous Butcher, an all-vegan market in Minneapolis that serves up a ridiculously wide range of meat-free “meats” and dairy-free cheeses. Brother-and-sister duo Aubry and Kale Walch opened the shop in January 2016 and, at the time, it was celebrated as the first-ever completely vegan butcher in the United States.
After years spent perfecting their recipes for everything from meatless chorizo to vegan camembert, selling them at farmer’s markets and ultimately opening their brick-and-mortar shop, the Walches applied for trademarks on the business’ name, as well as the terms “vegan butcher,” “meat-free meats,” “sister butcher,” and “brother butcher.” (Although those last two sound less like small businesses and more like the kind of programs that follow Forensic Files on HLN)
Anyway, four of those trademarks were approved, but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) denied the “vegan butcher” one, on the grounds that it was “merely descriptive.” According to the Star Tribune, the Walches shrugged it off and continued to use those two words on the shop’s packaging and on the printed labels they put on their products.
After the Walches’ trademark application was denied, Sweet Earth, the Nestlé-owned plant-based food manufacturer, filed its own paperwork with the USPTO and—put that shocked Pikachu face right here—its application for “The Vegan Butcher” was approved.
