They Did Surgery on a Cake

Aldi will alter the appearance of its Cuthbert the Caterpillar chocolate cake as part of a settlement with Marks and Spencer and its Colin the Caterpillar cake, according to the Telegraph.

The two supermarkets reached an undisclosed accord on 5 November 2021, which will see the German supermarket make concessions to Colin’s “intellectual property.” In April that year, Marks and Spencer had said that ““Cuthbert the Caterpillar ... rides on the coat-tails” of Colin’s reputation.

Waitrose’s Cecil, Sainsbury’s Wiggles, Tesco’s Curly, and Asda’s Clyde the Caterpillar are all brethren to Colin’s lauded ancestry, but as of now only Aldi has angered the powers that be enough to spark legal action. New entries to the “what if larvae, but cake?” cinematic universe will now have to tread very carefully indeed.

In the intervening months, Marks and Spencer got on the wrong side of an intellectual property dispute by brazenly imitating Dishoom’s famed bacon naan, and Boris Johnson had one of his illegal parties, for his birthday, with food from Marks and Spencer. For legal reasons, please draw your own conclusions about which cake might have been present.

An Aldi spokesperson said “Cuthbert is free.” But until he turns into a butterfly and escapes the confines of his cocoa prison, this will not be true.