(NewsNation) — Crumbl Cookies say Dirty Dough is playing dirty and knocking off their cookies.
The businessman facing a lawsuit from Crumbl over the cookie similarities says, “The whole thing’s silly.”
“They (Crumbl) believe, according to that lawsuit, that they own the right to make cookies… They used sprinkles. So we can’t use sprinkles,” Dirty Dough founder Bennett Maxwell told NewsNation’s “On Balance with Leland Vittert” Thursday night.
Dirty Dough has stolen trade secrets from Crumbl’s internal database… An ex-employee has turned over at least 643.7 MB of information that Dirty Dough had in their possession
Statement from Crumbl CEO Jason McGowan’
Crumbl’s lawsuit claims Dirty Dough:
- Committed trademark infringement
- Copied presentation and menu rotation
- Stole trade secrets, including recipes
Legal filings from Crumbl obtained by The Wall Street Journal allege Maxwell’s brother was a former employee and stole files containing dozens of recipes.
“Crumbl’s recipes are among its most prized assets and Crumbl carefully guards their secrecy to protect them from falling into competitors’ hands,” The Wall Street Journal reports the filing says.
Maxwell says that Crumbl has an “incredible company,” and that he’s been a big fan of theirs. He says they didn’t “use” Crumbl, but they “planned to leverage them.”
“We looked at Crumbl’s model, and a lot of other cookie models. and we took what was good and try to improve. That’s what capitalism is,” Maxwell said.
Crumbl has more than 600 shops in 47 states and started in Utah in 2017. Meanwhile, Dirty Dough has seven shops and is currently in two states.
However, when the lawsuit was first filed, Dirty Dough only had one store.
“Maybe we could just sue them out of existence because they don’t have the money for legal fees. But I mean, it’s really boosted us,” Maxwell added.