- Crumbl Cookies was founded in 2017 and gained national success through social media.
- The company alleges that two cookie businesses are profiting off of its 'successful trade dress'.
- The legal battle has been dubbed the #UtahCookieWars on social media.
Utah-based cookie giant Crumbl Cookies is suing two smaller cookie companies for trademark infringements in a legal battle dubbed the "Utah Cookie War."
Crumbl is seeking injunctions and monetary relief from both Dirty Dough and Crave Cookies — alleging in court documents that the products from each company were "confusingly similar to Crumbl's established and successful trade dress and brand identity."
Crumbl Cookies was founded in 2017 and gained a cult following with its weekly new flavors through the social media platform TikTok as people shared videos of trying new cookies each week, Utah Business reported in 2021.
In both cases, documents state that each founder of the two companies had some sort of connection to Crumbl before pursuing their own ventures.
A family member of the founder of Dirty Dough was once a Crumbl Cookies employee who left the company in 2019. The Crave Cookies founder was denied a chance to be a Crumbl Cookies franchisee in 2019, according to KSL News Radio.
Although the lawsuits were filed in May, Dirty Dough, based in responded to the suit in a press release to Utah Business on Monday.
"Apparently, this billion-dollar company, Crumbl, is threatened by a startup with only a couple of locations to make a federal case out of rainbow sprinkles and rectangular boxes," founder Bennett Maxwell said. "Dirty Dough intends to defend itself against its baseless claims."
Crumbl alleges that the two companies are attempting to profit off of its branding and reputation using similar logos and packaging, according to the KSL report.
Maxwell encouraged people to "join the conversation" on Instagram using the hashtag #UtahCookieWars.
"We're pretty confused why a billion-dollar company is wanting to target two smaller start-ups out of Utah and Arizona," Crave Cookies owner Trent English told ABC4.
As of now, Crumbl has 330 locations nationwide, according to an Insider essay by Kimanzi Constable. Crave Cookies consists of three Utah locations, and Dirty Dough, founded in Arizona, has four locations in the Southwest, according to their company sites.
In an exclusive statement to Insider, a spokesperson from Crumbl accused Dirty Dough and Crave Cookies of using social media to "spread misinformation and garner public sentiment."
"One of the defendant's brothers, who we also believe was involved in the defendant's business, was a former corporate employee of Crumbl who had access to our recipes, schematics, processes, and other proprietary information," the statement read. "We have recently been told by a whistleblower, with insider knowledge, that the defendant misappropriated this information."