The Hempany loses in court

As soon as the ruling is legally binding, the start-up will no longer be allowed to call its hemp drink "Milck". The Stuttgart Regional Court thus upheld the action brought by the Wettbewerbszentrale.

The Stuttgart Regional Court has upheld the action brought by the Wettbewerbszentrale against The Hempany. In future, the start-up will no longer be allowed to market its hemp-based drink under the name "Milck". The Stuttgart-based company advertised with slogans such as "hemi = hemp milck" and the addition "We milk hemp seeds instead of cows".

The Hempany is now likely to face high costs. They will have to bear the legal costs and change their marketing. According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung the start-up is currently still consulting with its lawyer about a possible appeal against the ruling. This is because the judgment is not yet legally binding.

At the hearing, the Regional Court of Stuttgart followed the arguments of the Wettbewerbszentrale, which referred to an EU directive. According to this directive, only products that are of animal origin may be called "milk". Tudor Vlah from the Wettbewerbszentrale argued back in mid-December that this absolute protection of designations could not be circumvented by changing one letter.

The company had criticized the lawsuit on its website before the court hearing and asked for solidarity. The founders suspected that the milk lobby was behind this. The start-up itself sees "Milck" as a term of art; consumers can easily distinguish the product from animal milk.