Metcalfe's Sues Festival Foods for Trademark Infringement

Madison, Wis.-based grocer Metcalfe's Market, which operates two Metcalfe’s stores in Madison and one in Wauwatosa, has filed a lawsuit accusing another Wisconsin grocer, Onalaska-based Festival Foods, of stealing its logo’s concept and infringing on its trademark, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

The lawsuit claims Festival’s logo is “confusingly similar” to Metcalfe’s, the newspaper reported. Metcalfe's communicates the local sourcing of products – including items such as blue cheese from Shullsburg and tortillas from Watertown – with concepts shaped like U.S. highway markers that read “Wisconsin Food Miles,” while Festmark Inc., which operates 25 stores under the Festival Foods banner, communicates “Festival Foods/Locally Grown” on its similar imagery. Metcalfe's claims it created the “road sign marks” first, and that it has been using one since 2010 and the other in 2011.

The lawsuit, filed last week in a Madison federal court, requests that Festival Foods be made to stop using the logo, as well as pay unspecified damages for what Metcalfe's calls “intentional, deliberate and willful” trademark infringement, the newspaper said.