Hellmann's Just Launched Its Own Vegan Mayo

By Clint Rainey

The condiment aisle's newest vegan mayo will be made by none other than ... the company that just spent months trying to sue a mayo-maker for being vegan. Apparently, Hellmann's backup plan, after losing a yearlong fight to rid shelves of Just Mayo's popular eggless spread, was to create an egg-free rival called "Carefully Crafted Dressing & Sandwich Spread." The timing is apparently completely coincidental -- Hellmann's insists customers have been lobbying for a vegan option "for years." It comes out later this month, along with another Hellmann's first: an organic mayo that also uses cage-free eggs.

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Hellmann's later withdrew its lawsuit, partly because it infuriated the public, but also because Just Mayo began working directly with the FDA to reach a compromise -- which both parties ultimately did, allowing Just Mayo to keep its name in exchange for making the egg-free part of the label more explicit. Still, neither of these factors changed Hellmann's position that a mayonnaise without eggs is no mayonnaise at all (or, to quote the company's phrasing from the lawsuit, isn't "exactly, precisely, only and simply mayonnaise"), and that obviously put Hellmann's in a bit of a bind when naming its Just Mayo competitor.

So consumers got Carefully Crafted Dressing & Sandwich Spread, which is simultaneously vague-sounding and a mouthful. The consequence is that this unwieldy 11-syllable name -- the corner Hellmann's had originally hoped to back Just Mayo into -- will probably cause no shortage of condiment-aisle shoppers to reach for it (because, hey, it's white) and then go, "Whoops, this doesn't say mayo anywhere ... "

[PR Newswire]

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