There’s a supply chain crisis going on in America right now, and the most odd method I’ve seen it happening currently is with the cups you get at your fast food places or convenience stores for your soda/water/tea.
Normally when a place is out of cups, they’ll revert to the next size of cups, or will even use “generic” branded cups as opposed to their store branded cups. But what I’ve seen in the past week is super bizarre. I went to a Del Taco and ordered a medium iced tea, and the branded cup they gave to me for a place called “Cafe Rio” which I’ve never heard of. I looked it up online and apparently it’s another Tex-Mex style fast food restaurant but it has association I can find with Del Taco, they’re not owned by an Umbrella organization nor do they even share the same HQ location. In addition, I went to a “Extra Mile” convenience store which is the convenience store attached to Chevron gas stations, and instead of their own branded Extra Mile cups, they were literally using 7-11 cups. I know this because they had the words BIG GULP on them with is a trademarked brand of 7-11.
I understand that due to supply issues they’re forced to use non-branded cups, but why exactly are these places now using the cups of competing brands? How do they even get these cups? I remember when I used to work at a fast food place if we ever ran out of branded cups they’d send someone to a specific local supply chain like Smart & Final or CostCo to pick up generic cups, but why are they using someone elses property?
The company that has extra cups with their branding on them may be happily selling them to competitors who can’t get cups elsewhere because why not have free advertising.
Or even if they’re not doing so happily, they might not see it as a big enough issue to put up a fuss over.
I haven’t seen exactly what the OP describes- one chain using another chain’s branded cups. But for as long as I can remember, I’ve seen one-off locations or extremely small chains ( like 2-3 locations small) using a larger chains branded cups/napkins etc - I always assumed the manufacturer or distributor had extra stock left after the design changed or something like that.
Is it possible the Del Taco was previously a Café Rio and had old stock still? Or maybe some supply chain mixup and the trucking firm delivered the wrong boxes?
A bar I go to uses Christmas 2020 cups for the water and non alcoholic beverages, I assume they were ordered for Christmas parties that didn’t happen last year
I am surprised it’s not considered a trademark violation for one business to use cups (or anything else) with another business’s branding on it. Or maybe it is, but no one has called them on it yet.
You can buy signs online that advertise that your property is protected by the X Alarm Company.
Is it a trademark violation if you actually use Company Y, or no service at all?
X probably appreciates the free advertising. The same might go for cups marked with the name of another business (assuming the product contained therein isn’t substandard).
I’m not sure the company would consider it “free advertising”.
Imagine someone stops at a random gas station, and goes into the convenience store without paying attention to the “Extra Mile” signage outside the building. They buy a fountain drink, and generally have a substandard experience – the store was dirty and the drink was flat. They might then notice the 7-Eleven branding on the cup, and mistakenly think that store where they had the bad experience was a 7-Eleven. I’m sure 7-Eleven wants to avoid that kind of misunderstanding, which is why companies are so protective or their trademarks.