Yamo defends itself against Hipp

The market leader regularly sues the baby food start-up. Now the company, which is also active in Germany, is fighting back with an open letter.

Start-up Yamo demands more "fair play" from baby food market leader Hipp in an open letter. "Six warning letters and two lawsuits in just two years, one of them against us founders personally," writes Luca Michas, co-founder of Yamo. "I mean, there's a method to this cease-and-desist mania. The problem is: even if we win in court, as we did recently, the many legal proceedings initiated by the market leader naturally put an enormous burden on our start-up."

Yamo was founded in 2016, has 40 employees and says it has 30,000 customers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Shortly after entering the German market in the summer of 2018, the first lawsuit from Hipp flew into the house of the three founders. Among other things, Hipp was bothered by the start-up's marketing statements. On Facebook, for example, the startup wrote: "If you try conventional baby porridge, you know why babies always spit it out."

Yamo says it is the first European company to produce baby food fresh and cold-pressed. This is said to preserve more vitamins and flavors. The food is sold in the refrigerated section. Hipp's baby food, on the other hand, is pasteurized with heat. In Hipp's lawsuit against this manufacturing process, the Hamburg Regional Court ruled in favor of Yamo. Further legal proceedings are ongoing.

The founders of Yamo urge Hipp not to burn money pointlessly on legal costs. "We donate the Foundation Children's Health the sum that you cost us on average quarterly," write the founders in their open letter. 10,000 euros they have donated, according to the letter.

Hipp defends itself against the accusations. When competitors make "unfair comparisons and inaccurate claims about proven and safe baby food products," it is an appropriate course of action to "have that neutrally evaluated by a court," the Hipp company told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung