Lidl Weighs In On Aldi And Marks & Spencer Colin The Caterpillar Dispute

You see, Marks & Spencer has started legal action against Aldi who - they claim - has infringed on their copyright by creating 'Cuthbert the Caterpillar', a similar insect-based birthday treat that is almost indistinguishable from the OG Colin cake.

They've launched an intellectual property claim to the High Court claiming that the similarity of Cuthbert to Colin could lead customers to believe that they are the same standard and 'rides on the coattails' of the 30-year success of their cake.

Yes, Colin the Caterpillar is 30-years-old.

A spokesperson for M&S said: "Because we know the M&S brand is special to our customers and they expect only the very best from us, love and care goes into every M&S product on our shelves.

"We want to protect Colin, Connie and our reputation for freshness, quality, innovation and value."

Whilst Aldi haven't commented just yet, Lidl Ireland's Twitter account has. They shared a picture of a Google search for 'insects that look like caterpillars that aren't' and captioned it: "Our legal team's search history right now".

Very funny. They want to be carefully, though. Lidl is no stranger to a 'similar' looking product themselves.

How close to this larval legal litigation do they really want to get?

Whilst Aldi has yet to involve themselves by commenting in an official capacity, their social media team have certainly been busy letting everyone know exactly how they feel about the whole thing.

They've even mocked up some new packaging showing Cuthbert encased behind bars.

They also labelled that box 'serves 12 years'.

Before that, they'd tweeted: "This is not just any court case, this is... #FreeCuthbert."

The sub-text behind that shouldn't need much explaining.

Anyway, loads of different supermarkets have their own take on Colin.

There's Sainsbury's Wiggles, Tesco's Curly, Morris by Morrisons, the Co-op's Charlie, Cecil by Waitrose and Asda's Clyde.

So, you have to wonder, what is it about Aldi's version that has tipped Marks & Spencer over the edge?

We'll have to wait to find out, because you can bet we've not heard the last of this.

Expect Aldi do bring out a new range of 'Perry Pig' gummy sweets next week.