NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed Britannia Industries Limited to stop using the current packaging style for its ‘Nutri Choice Digestive Zero’ biscuits and phase out the existing stocks in four weeks.
The high court’s interim order came on a complaint from rival ITC Limited that alleged the Britannia’s style and packaging for the biscuit was “deceptively” similar to its ‘Sunfeast Farmlite Digestive – All Good’ biscuits.
ITC had launched its brand of the biscuit in February 2016. Five months later, Britannia came out its product in July 2016. Britannia claimed it was the market leader in digestive biscuits category with over 66% of the market share — in both volume and value.
Both brand of biscuits are currently sold in a blue and yellow packaging.
“A market leader like Britannia can certainly eat into the market share of a relatively smaller player like ITC in the biscuit trade by adopting a deceptive variant of the latter’s get up ,” Justice S Muralidhar said.
With the final decision yet to be taken on the issue, the HC directed Britannia to maintain “true accounts of its sales of Nutri Choice Zero Digestive biscuits with the impugned packaging from its launch till the date of discontinuance”.
{{/usCountry}}With the final decision yet to be taken on the issue, the HC directed Britannia to maintain “true accounts of its sales of Nutri Choice Zero Digestive biscuits with the impugned packaging from its launch till the date of discontinuance”.
{{/usCountry}}ITC had claimed that its Britannia’s packaging for the biscuit is an imitation of its packaging for its product. “When placed next to each other, they are indistinguishable to the unwary customer,” ITC had argued.