We're taking a bite out of the 'Mac' battle between Supermac's and McDonald's on this week's episode of The Capital B.
Founder of Supermac's, Pat McDonagh, sits down with
The Capital B's Nick Webb to reveal what it's really like in the ever changing fast food industry.
From the inception of the Snack Box to the healthy changes he has in store for the legendary chips, it's safe to say he knows a thing or two about originality and branding.
This may be the reason behind his willingness to take on the ultimate fast food beast: McDonald's.
We told you
before that Supermac’s had asked the EU regulator to cancel the use of the Big Mac trademark registered by McDonald’s under certain classes.
Supermac’s said it submitted the request on the basis that McDonald’s is “engaged in trademark bullying by registering brand names which are nothing to do with them, they do not use and which are simply stored away in order to pulverize some future competitor just as this corporate giant has already tried with Supermac’s.”
McDonald’s had this response for JOE:
“... as with all companies around the world, McDonald’s defends the values of our brand, including our trademarks, to protect consumers against confusion and prevent others from taking unfair advantage of our trademarks."
McDonagh told Nick Webb the burger brawl is rumbling on,
"Well... It's not UFC, but we wanted to expand further and apply for the trademark and they objected. So when we reapplied we found that in the course of the second application they had done a few things that we wouldn't call nice.
"They applied for a registered trademark on our Snack Box which they've never used, and in excess of a thousand trademarks a lot of them included the word Mac and me being McDonagh I took exception. So we objected the trademark on the Big Mac, we don't have an issue with it being used as a product, but they've trademarked it for restaurant services, this stops us from expanding and slows us down."
McDonagh went on to say that it's not just McDonald's that are cleaning up when it comes to trademarks.
"This sort of thing is not just McDonald's, it's bigger companies across the world, they trademark everything so they prevent any smaller guys from getting into the game, and eventually the smaller companies just say to hell with this."
Supermac's is hoping to expand across the UK and they almost broke ground on a site in Australia before putting the brakes on the project due to the McDonald's situation.
Pat McDonagh is convinced it will be resolved soon, and they won't be the ones backing down.
"Sure look it, we've been fighting all our lives we might as well stay at it now."
You can hear the full interview with the founder of Supermac's at 3.46 in the link below.
The Capital B is available free of charge every Monday morning from 7 am; listeners can tune in on Soundcloud and can also download and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and other podcast providers.
