On a recent trip to Costco, I saw these “Mega Packs” containing 24 Uncrustables:
While I’ve never had an Uncrustable myself, I’m certainly aware of them. Next to them, however, was something I’d never heard of before:
“CrustOffs?! More like Knock-Offs, am I right?” I quipped to no one but myself, though now also to you.
But then I wondered if I was, in fact, right. Are CrustOffs knock-offs? To Wikipedia I went, where I learned:
In the United States, mass-produced crustless sealed sandwiches were introduced in 1995, in Fargo, North Dakota by David Geske and Len Kretchman—at the time marketing as Incredible Uncrustables to schools in the Midwest, with fifty employees making roughly 35,000 of the sealed sandwiches daily by 1998. Their company was purchased by The J.M. Smucker Company in 1998.
So yes, it seems Uncrustables were indeed the original, at least in the US. Just a few years after two dads invented them, Smuckers snapped up their company MenUSAvers, and took it national. Now, things have grown to the point where there are dozens of similar products, enough to warrant an entire Wikipedia page for the “sealed crustless sandwich” segment.
That page also notes that Smucker’s has frequently availed themselves of the American legal system. Smucker’s(’s?) purchase of MenUSAvers got them a patent on Uncrustables, which then they sought to enforce. The issuing of that patent was apparently deeply flawed, and it was eventually revoked in the mid-2000s.
More recently, the company has also been litigious when it comes to other sealed crustless sandwiches which happen to be circular, such as those from a company called “Gallant Tiger”. They sell more adult-oriented sandwichs with flavors like apple chili jelly & almond butter, , and their CEO Kamal Mohamed noted:
“One can tell the difference between Domino’s and Pizza Hut even though they’re both circular food products. So what are we really talking about here?”
What indeed? Though other competitors have changed the shape of their products, Gallant Tiger’s sandwiches continue to be circular. Good for them.
Ultimately, it seems Charlotte’s is legally in the clear to make their own sealed crustless sandwiches. Still, they’ll always be knock-offs, and perhaps it would be best if their name wasn’t quite so close to that word.
Previously in Costco-related food nonsense: An Obscenely Massive Box of Mozzarella Sticks
