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."
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.”
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
maybe it's to distinguish from all the other funky shaped tortilla chips you can get these days? like, there's ones that are little strips, or whole round tiny tortillas, or weird little bowl shapes.
I had this thought, too. In fact, other bags of Tostitos seem to back that theory up with the names on each bag.
Restaurant Style, Bite Size Rounds, Flavored Triangles, Thin & Crispy, Cantina Traditional Yellow Corn, Crispy Rounds, their own trademarked "Scoops!" and so on.
There's even "Lightly Salted" that says "50% Less Sodium than Tostitos Original Restaurant Style Tortilla Chips."
The Original Restaurant Style may not say "Tortilla Chips" directly on the front, but the Lightly Salted bag definitely says that Original Restaurant Style are tortilla chips.
Eeww, those are horrible. Like whatever they put on them feels like it is eating your tongue and they just feel fuzzy. Plus they make your fingers feel even more gross than nacho or ranch doritos.
Hint of lime my ass, they are a full on assualt on the senses.