KZN honey widow goes toe-to-toe with retail giant

1 Mar 2021

In a case reminiscent of KwaZulu-Natal-based craft soda maker Frankie’s showdown with Woolworths, a small Pietermaritzburg-based honey enterprise is staring down the corporate tactics of Food Lover’s Market.

Debbie Power and her team of five are purveyors of the “finest” totally natural and 100% local honey available in KZN. The business, Nature’s Gold, has been Power’s happy buzz, till she discovered the retail giant was riding roughshod over her trademark rights. Her efforts to seek redress since 2019 have been rebuffed by Food Lover’s Market (FLM) on grounds other than the legitimacy of the trademark.

Debbie Power with her merchandise. (Photo: Supplied)

The online presence of Nature’s Gold honey speaks volumes about two very different versions of a brand that is contested by the feisty widow and an insouciant Food Lover’s Market. While the name under FLM pops up as a Top 10 Google search, a trawl for honey entrepreneur Debbie Power is traced to a humble toehold on Facebook.

Since 2019, Power has been fighting a trademark war with Food Lover’s Market.

At issue is a trademark for Nature’s Gold registered by Power’s husband Andrew, who thought the name had a sweet ring to it, in 2011. Modest by any standard, Nature’s Gold kept its head above water in the hotly contested honey market in Pietermaritzburg and the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands over the past 12 years.

In 2018, Andrew died suddenly. A widow overnight, Debbie Power found the going tough and, in her words, “took the foot off the pedal”.

Over the next few months, Power clawed her way back into the business, only to discover in September 2019 that FLM had launched an in-house honey range, Nature’s Gold.

She approached proprietary law specialists Bouwers Inc that pointed out to FLM’s legal department that Power was the keeper of the trademark registration for “Nature’s Gold”.

In response to Bouwers, group legal adviser Mirella Gastaldi acknowledged that Power was the proprietor of the trademark, but questioned its use.

“(Y)ou have not provided us with evidence of such use, nor have you advise (sic) in respect of which goods your client uses such trademark,” she wrote.

Gastaldi’s point was that if Power was not able to quantify the impact of her brand on the market, she had no claim to the exclusive rights of Nature’s Gold.

Gastaldi, in her closing paragraph, claimed that while FLM had found no evidence of Power’s use of Nature’s Gold in several online searches, it only became aware of her trademark registration on receipt of Bouwers’ letter of demand in August 2019.

The reply by Food Lover’s Market lawyers to Debbie Power’s claim that the Nature's Gold brand belongs to her honey enterprise.

Food Lover’s Market’s recalcitrance infuriated Power, and more so as Nature’s Gold was homage to her late husband.

“We’ve been selling our honey in KZN for the last 12 years and Andrew took out the trademark in 2011,” she wrote to Gastaldi.

“The name is particularly important to us and adds to the anger we feel with your total disregard for our small business,” she fumed.

Fuelling her rage was FLM’s seemingly casual dismissal of the trademark rights in legalese.

“The words “Nature’s Gold” are purely descriptive, meaning that even with a trade mark registration, you will not acquire the exclusive rights to the words “Natures” (sic) or “Gold” or the words used in combination unless your use of such trademark is so extensive that it has gained distinctiveness and our use of the words or words similar thereto is likely to give rise to deception or confusion in the marketplace,” wrote Gastaldi.

Power said the cost of enforcing trademark rights was prohibitively expensive.

“It’s a (loophole) the company is using to play delaying games. I have no doubt FLM plans to ride it out and hope the dispute dies a quiet death,” she said.

Power said she hadn’t given up the fight and demanded one of three measures: FLM stops using the name and apologises publicly, FLM pays her royalties from every bottle of honey sold under the name Nature’s Gold, or FLM offers to buy the name from her.

An amicable resolution seems some way off, as Gastaldi’s terse response to a final request for comment on this report seems to suggest. Not unlike her contention that the use of the trademark, not its legitimacy, should shape the debate, Gastaldi was more concerned about which publication or what platform the article was destined for.

“As you are aware, we have a right to this information and request that you disclose this information to us without delay,” she wrote.

“With regard to any additional comment on your proposed article, we believe that you have had sight of our communications with Ms Powers, which communications set out our position in respect of this matter. We therefore have no further comments to make.” DM

Derek Alberts is a freelance journalist based in KwaZulu-Natal.

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