The Great Bread Bin Heist

Foschini Group offers crumbs instead of fair slice in compensation for infringement of design they deny copying.

- Jonathan Erasmus

A SOUTH AFRICAN RETAILER WHO denied stealing a bread bin design from a Cape Town manufacturer went on to offer them cash “to avoid litigation”. Despite The Foschini Group’s best efforts to convince the design studio from whom they copied the idea, Pedersen+Lennard, that it wasn’t done on purpose, the design house doesn’t believe them.

The Foschini Group (TFG), owner of the chain of @Home stores, has left the Woodstock-based design and manufacturing studio with one conclusion: the corporate stole their idea of a “unique” bread bin and then profited from it to the tune of about R500,000 while offering them just R30,000 as a “token gesture”.

Partners Luke Pedersen and James Lennard created their bread bin in August 2011. The container’s “distinguishing and unique” feature is that the lid opens into a cookbook stand. It is one of the studio’s flagship products, has been exported across the globe and holds the distinction in the world of bread bins of being listed on actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s online shopping site, Goop.

So why did TFG stock a cheap copy of a design they claimed they did not steal, but for which they were prepared to pay hush-money to avoid litigation?

In March 2014, a senior kitchenware buyer for @Home, Imandi Cayanis, contacted Pedersen + Lennard to say she was “particularly interested” in their “[recycling] bins and bread bins” after seeing their products exhibited in the V&A Waterfront’s Made in SA store and thought they were “stunning”. Cayanis said @Home wanted to test “these items in our Top and Flagship stores” (about 50 countrywide). The studio only needed to accept @Home’s payment terms: 30 days after delivery, with TFG getting a further 5% discount once they had settled the account. “Have you dealt with retailers before?” asked Cayanis.