Post Consumer Brands is suing General Mills for patent infringement of its bagged cereal displays, pitting two Twin Cities breakfast giants against one another.
Lakeville-based Post Consumer Brands claims Golden Valley-based General Mills is trying to piggyback off its design success by not only introducing bagged cereals but also how it arranges those bags on grocery-store shelves.
"[General Mills] has now sought to capitalize on Post's bagged cereal success by rushing to enter the bag cereal market with a copycat merchandising system that imitates Post's innovative divider and merchandising system for bagged cereals," the suit states.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in federal court in the Eastern District of Missouri where Post Holdings, the parent company of Post Consumer Brands, is based.
In 2015, Post Holdings bought MOM Brands, known for its Malt-O-Meal hot wheat cereal and bagged cold cereals, which are knockoff versions of major brands. Malt-O-Meal's Marshmallow Mateys, for instance, looks nearly identical to Mills' Lucky Charms.
Post Holdings combined its Post cereals with its MOM cereals under Post Consumer Brands. Last year, the company introduced new plastic dividers at retailers across the country as a way to more neatly display its Malt-O-Meal bagged cereal in vertical columns.
General Mills this year started using a similar plastic, vertical merchandise display system for it recently launched bagged cereal products at some U.S. retail outlets.
"From the time Malt-O-Meal bagged cereals were first launched in the 1970s, competitors in the industry — including [General Mills] — criticized Malt-O-Meal bagged cereals as inferior quality products and as being too big for store shelves," the suit says. "However, as boxed cereal sales have declined recently, Malt-O-Meal bagged cereal sales have continued to grow."
