Unilever's Attempt to Take Down Hampton Creek Products

Hampton Creek is the name of a food technology company which is looking to revolutionize the way we view food products in our daily lives. Their company mission is to provide "delicious food that's healthier, sustainable, and affordable."

The company, founded in 2011, focuses on researching and developing new ways to utilize plant products to make everyday food products not only more natural and healthier to consume, but also more environmentally friendly. One of their long-term goals is to compile their research into deriving proteins from plants into the largest plant database in the world,

Unilever is a much larger company, and recently celebrated it's 85th year in operation. This 60-billion dollar corporation, based in the UK, makes many of the household products we use and see everyday. With many brands falling under it's name, including Dove, Knorr, Hellman's, and Lipton, it's likely that each of us uses some Unilever product daily.

Within recent decades, Unilever has made great progress in become more environmentally friendly, and use more humane practices towards animals. As of 2011, Unilever announced that they would begin a campaign to only use cage-free chicken eggs in their products, and was one of the first major corporations to commit to sourcing all of its tea products in a sustainable manner.

Despite the seemingly common goals of these two companies, their similarities have sparked much contention between the two - mainly on behalf of the much-larger corporation

Within the last few months, Unilever has filed a lawsuit against Hampton Creek, citing that the smaller company has 'seized market shares' and has caused Unilever to suffer gross financial losses. Under the current corporate law, which many have criticized as being outdated (these laws originated close to a century ago), Unilever does have the legal right and authority to file suit.

Unfortunately for the international corporate giant, this suit has caused significant bad press to circulate around Unilever's name and practices, and caused Hampton Creek to become somewhat of a poster child for the modern idea of a 'do-good' company fighting against the evil corporate giant. This 'David versus Goliath' style of market competition often leaves the smaller company with better publicity - and therefore more profit - then before the lawsuit began.

And the proof lies in the pudding, as they say - sales of Hampton Creek's products have grown exponentially since the filing of this suit. It appears that, by trying to take down their competition, Unilever has involuntarily helped them to rocket straight to the top of the market.