A San Francisco startup that makes food without eggs is being told to "hold the mayo."
Hampton Creek is being sued by food giant Unilever, maker of Hellman's and Best Foods Mayonnaise, over its product called "Just Mayo." The lawsuit claims Hampton's product shouldn't be called mayonnaise because it doesn't contain eggs.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is a backer of the SF-based firm, a food technology company that is trying to make food that's both vegan and market-friendly.
Just Mayo is doing well to break into the $11.3 billion global mayonnaise market. The plant-based alternative is reportedly carried by Wal-Mart and Costco. That could be part of the issue: The company is doing too well for Unilever's liking.
Unilever, which is an enormous company and by far the biggest-yet challenger to Hampton Creek, did not comment to Forbes about the lawsuit.
Executives for Hampton Creek say Unilever has not had to deal with serious competition in 60 years. The suit "speaks to how backwards these people think about food," CEO Joshua Tetrick told the news source.
"We've done a lot of work on the legal side,” Tetrick told NBC Bay Area. “We call our product mayo for a reason.”
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Whatever it's called, Hampton Creek is selling a lot of its vegan products, largely by claiming that they don't taste different from the alternatives.
Other backers of Hampton Creek include Li Ka-shing, the richest man in Asia, and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.
Hampton Creek was founded in 2011. Since then, it's also hired some talent formerly employed by Unilever, which tried – and failed – to make its own plant-based mayo, Forbes reported.
