That's a very generous assumption for a company whose "flavoured, uhhh, triangles" can't pass the legal threshold of the word "chip" or "snack", let alone "tortilla".
That part I was unaware of. Can you provide evidence for this, because a quick search only surfaces that they were sued for not actually including natural lime flavor in the "hint of lime" chips. They were extensively referred to as "tortilla chips" in those articles. I have yet to find anything saying that they don't meet the legal definition of "tortilla chip."
EDIT:
They're still described as tortilla chips, just not on the front of the bag. The ingredients are literally just corn, oil, salt, and added flavoring on the flavored ones. I don't know how that "doesn't meet the legal definition."
People who read into product labels as if they’re secretly discovering that we’ve all been being fed sawdust and Soylent green instead of real food this whole time are like the sovereign citizens of marketing.
“KFC changed their name because there is no chicken in it anymore and they’re get in trouble legally! It’s just breasts grown in a lab genetically!”
Ingredients lists aren't tightly regulated? Most of these chips only have three ingredients listed: Corn, Oil, Salt. That's from the bag of Restaurant Style.
I think you're just reaching, there's not a lot of evidence to support your assertion. There wasn't much to support my assertion either, which is why I think @juliebean@lemm.ee had the right answer.
Helps to make sure you're talking to the right person.
Read my first comment again, not sure where you're getting the idea that I think they do not meet the legal definition of tortilla chip? They probably do, but I have no idea one way or the other.
Forgive me, that is my fault, I thought you were the person I was originally responding to. My apologies. I did not mean to put words in your mouth and that's totally on me.
I just noticed the Juantonitos instead of Juanitas thing in the store tonight. And I felt like I was being gaslit. Like a Bearenstien bears gag. When did that happen? I would have thought I would have heard about it because they've got a factory in the next town over.
It's been a slow changeover since 2022 when they lost a trademark dispute with another company that owned the name "Juanita's" trademark and also made Mexican food.
The website even got updated with the new name, which is a mashup of the names of the original Juanita and her husband Antonio. I personally love the new name, I think it's sweet.
Sasser, one of the founders of Untitled Goose Game publisher Panic, followed up with the answer in a few days, via a post from The Trademark Lawyer: California-based Juanita’s Foods, a maker and distributor of canned Mexican food products, had filed suit in federal court this August against Juanita’s chips parent company Dominguez Family Foods, alleging it was violating the terms of an agreement to use “Juanita’s” only on products sold in the Pacific Northwest (defined as Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming).
“Plaintiff could have filed a trademark infringement lawsuit and shut down Dominguez” in the late 1980s, the lawsuit claims. “Instead, Plaintiff gave Dominguez the benefit of the doubt. It offered Dominguez an opportunity to continue using the Juanita’s mark, subject to very specific restrictions that were intended to avoid any consumer confusion between their brands.”
Thanks for the info. I'm stoked that they didn't get buried by the lawsuit. They employ a lot of people in my community and their Chilipeño chips are the bomb!
Wouldn't this make them lose their trademark (or whatever the appropriate term is) because it goes into commom use? I swear that happened with another company