One the one hand, you’ve got something made of chickpeas, lemons and garlic all mashed together that you wear under your pants, and on the other you’ve got hummus. Wait, just kidding. Clothing is nothing like hummus, really, which is what the owner of Hanes Hummus is insisting in the face of a cease-and-desist from Hanes Brands Inc., the purveyors of underwear and other apparel.

The man behind Hanes Hummus says the “Hanes” part of the brand is simply his nickname, a play on his first name, Johannes, reports The Star Phoenix. He says he got a letter from the garment company last week threatening to sue him if he didn’t stop selling his products under that name and to destroy everything he’d made with the brand on it.

The letter arrived on a day that had been pretty good for him, as he says his hummus had just appeared in a weekly community newspaper in Saskatoon, where he lives. He says he’d been getting congratulatory calls all day, and then… cease-and-desist.

“I went from being really, really happy to having a sick feeling in my stomach,” he said, adding that no one would confuse Hanes Hummus with the underwear brand, as Hanes claims.

“Not once has anyone said, ‘Like Hanes the underwear,’ ” he said. “My brand is Hanes Hummus. It’s not just Hanes.”

His attorney sent off a reply that plays on that very obvious difference in products, including passages like: “I am confident that HBI is not in the food production business at all, let alone the production of fine and tasty hummus of the type manufactured and sold by Hanes Hummus.”

And: “I was not aware that HBI’s Tshirts were edible, made with chick peas, lemon or garlic.”

Because they’re not. We also contacted Hanes Brands to see if the company has a comment on the situation, as the Hanes Hummus owner says he hasn’t heard back yet as of yesterday.

“They have resources I can’t really compete with. If I hear back from them, we’ll take the next step,” he said.

Hummus maker strikes back at underwear giant [The Star Phoenix]

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