A Boston-based pickle manufacturer is suing a rival in New Jersey, alleging that it stole a 100-year-old formula to produce items sold at Whole Foods.
The Patriot Pickle products marketed under the Whole Foods 365 brand are the subject of a second lawsuit by Grillo’s Pickles. Between 2012 until 2021, the two were business partners until a falling out, according to WCVB. Grillo’s claimed that Patriot exploited its secret formula in items sold at the well-known grocery chain across the country, threatening the former’s sales of during the busiest season for pickle sales.
Grillo’s initial complaint, filed in January, equally claimed that Patriot’s Wahlberg-brand pickles were able to compete with their bread and butter pickles because Patriot made fraudulent representations about its pickles.
“Patriot Pickle is trying to profit off of Grillo’s 100-year-old family recipe and our trade secrets,” Grillo’s Pickles President Adam Kaufman stated, calling it “a massive violation of trust and a disappointment (…) threatening to permanently damage our business.”
According to WCVB, Grillo’s Pickles got their start in 2008 with an old family recipe that the proprietor, Travis Grillo, marketed at events in and around Boston from a hand-built wooden pickle cart.
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