Marks and Spencer vs Aldi is a tale as old as time with no love lost between the two retailers.
Aldi is widely known for its discount prices, cheeky social media presence and of course, Cuthbert the Caterpillar.
M&S launched legal action against the German store in April 2021, accusing its rival of copying the design of its Colin the Caterpillar cake in a bid to force Aldi to take Cuthbert off the shelves and agree not to sell anything resembling it in the future.
Aldi, instead, doubled down and made a series of digs over the years.
.@marksandspencer drink Aldi wine pass it on pic.twitter.com/8NiNJIVVZP
— Aldi Stores UK (@AldiUK) April 9, 2024
In February 2024, Aldi lost again in its battle with M&S over a light-up gin liqueur, with an appeal by the discounter dismissed.
Seemingly still hurt by the loss, Aldi has now taken aim at M&S on X, formerly known as Twitter, suggesting the high-end retailer drinks their wine.
Social media users found the dig hilarious.
One said: "This has won the internet debate today".
Another joked: "Not just any wine this is Al Di wine".
Someone else asked: "What wine is it? Need a bottle now!" Aldi replied: "Grab two, some reason this bottle is selling mad today," with a link to this wine.
Recommended reading:
Co-op beats M&S original Colin in caterpillar cake blind taste test
Aldi reveals more new UK stores opening in the coming months
Aldi confirms plans to build new stores in Wiltshire towns
Aldi copycat claims
It is the latest in a long list of disputes involving Aldi over copycat claims.
In 2020, Brewdog teased Aldi on Twitter over similarities between its ‘Anti-Establishment’ beer and the brand’s Punk IPA.
BrewDog’s CEO James Watt said the brand would launch a new beer called ‘BrewDog Aldi IPA’ and send some to the supermarket. The product was later launched in Aldi stores.
In 2019, Aldi redesigned the packaging of its Italian-style chicken sausages after Heck owner Andrew Keeble accused it of mimicking the brand’s chicken Italia sausages.
In regards to the latest M&S lawsuit, an Aldi spokeswoman said: “We are disappointed with this judgement and are considering our position, as we still believe there is no merit in the case put forward by M&S. We will continue to innovate and develop exciting, high-quality products for our customers.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here