We have to go to war with New Zealand, and it's all because of Weetabix

What with all of the pain, torment and political turmoil going on in the world, you’ve probably spent a not insignificant amount of time recently pondering your impending doom. Global warming? Nuclear war? Some kind of horrible apocalypse caused entirely by a single Donald Trump tweet? Who knows! The only certainty is death!

Anyway, there appears to be a new contender for possible world-ending events: we are officially AT WAR with New Zealand.

...kind of. 

What’s actually happened is this: 300 boxes of Weetabix were due to be delivered to British export store A Little Bit of Britain, but the boxes were impounded by  Kiwi customs officials because of a complaint by “Weet-Bix” – the evil New Zealand version of Weetabix – who claim that the Weetabix brand name infringes their copyright. 

And the plot gets THICKER. Sanitarium, who own Weet-Bix, told the owner of A Little Bit Of Britain that she’d get her delicious British cereal back if she covered the brand name with a sticker. She, fairly reasonably to be honest, refused. 

“They [Sanitarium] walk in and slap an agreement down and it is quite daunting for a very small business... they are trying to bully the small guys,” she toldthe Guardian. “They are trying to force us to do what they want because they are a multi-million-dollar company, but we are not willing to bow to Sanitarium’s demands as we don’t believe there is a case of trademark infringement here and we are standing up for that principle.

“I don’t feel we should have to cover the word up because they are different words and different customers, and the boxes look nothing alike,” she said. “They taste different as well. Brits who have grown up on Weetabix like it but Kiwis prefer their Weet-Bix, it isn’t a competition.”

Now loads and loads of people are REALLY, REALLY annoyed. 

Don’t get in the way of a man and his high fibre breakfast mulch, New Zealand. Just don’t do it.