FLATBREAD GRILL, LLC v. VIEIRA'S BAKERY INC.

Follow the Case Online

Details of this federal trademark case are publicly available online and have been widely distributed across various legal platforms (see below).

This website serves as a platform to document our journey through the litigation process, share our perspectives, and keep you informed as we move toward trial. 

We approached Vieira's Bakery in 2016 to discuss co-packing our artisanal bread, Thumb Bread®. A mutual NDA was signed, which we initiated. Though we won't get into the details of the co-packing relationship here, rest assured, the discussions to co-pack for us were ongoing right up until Vieira's Bakery decided to knockoff our burlap bag design.

Vieira’s Bakery, Inc. violated the NDA, stole our intellectual property, and profited off of it.  

Upon discovering the knockoff bag, a brief text message and then email exchange with Melissa Calrow, a sales representative (and our main contact at Vieira's Bakery's), deflected blame and told us to 'proceed how we see fit'.

We sent our first cease and desist on February 6, 2023. We sent another cease and desist in March 2023. We sent a draft complaint with a letter stating our intent to file a lawsuit if Vieira's Bakery did not STOP using the knockoff bag. 

Their attorneys told our attorneys that Carlos Vieira had 'deep pockets'.

We then proceeded to file the lawsuit in November 2023- MONTHS after our first cease and desist was sent. 

Vieira's Bakery had more than a reasonable amount of time to stop using the knockoff bag and settle this dispute.

They refused to stop using the knockoff bag and LIED repeatedly.

So here we are...

Why We’re Speaking Out

This website is about accountability, transparency, and justice. 

As a small, family-owned business, we are sharing our story to stand up not only for ourselves but for all entrepreneurs who pour their hearts into their work.

Vieira’s Bakery had multiple opportunities to resolve this dispute amicably. Instead, they chose to deny liability, gaslight us, and threaten us with their 'deep pockets', leaving us no choice but to seek justice through the judicial process.

We believe their actions were calculated and exploitative, targeting us because we are a small business. 

They assumed we would not be unable to defend ourselves. 

They were wrong.

Over the years, we’ve faced countless challenges as self-made entrepreneurs. We’ve endured hardships with grace and dignity, often choosing to stay silent. But this time is different. 

An entire industry has been dragged into this lawsuit.

We believe federal trademark laws were broken and a contractual obligation NOT to steal, borrow, or profit from our ideas was violated.

This Is About More Than a Burlap Bag

This case is bigger than a single design. 

It's about enforcing trademark laws that exist to protect consumers and safeguard original ideas. 

It's about small businesses getting taken advantage of by larger businesses. 

It's about putting profits over upholding the law.

What's right is right and we are here to fight the good fight.

Trademark law doesn’t say you only deserve protection if you’re generating millions in revenue. It exists to ensure fairness, prevent confusion, and uphold the rights of creators. 

Our burlap bread bag design was unique—so unique, in fact, that no one else had anything like it. 

Vieira’s Bakery knew this, yet they still went ahead and used a burlap image for the knockoff bag. 

Vieira's Bakery's sales representative, Melissa Calrow, repeatedly questioned us about Thumb Bread's burlap bread bag. In hindsight, we now realize she was fishing for information. At the time, we trusted her intentions were to help us scale as co-packers do.

Nearly Two Years of Deflection and Excuses

For almost two years, Vieira's Bakery has attempted to justify, misrepresent, and distract from their infringement. 

Initially, they claimed the design in question was a “bread basket” with no similarities to ours—despite the obvious fact that it featured a burlap image identical to our design and despite the fact that Vieira's Bakery has used the same design (that is NOT a burlap design) for DECADES before meeting us and seeing our burlap bag.

Melissa Calrow even attempted to justify the theft by claiming that customers had requested their retail ready bag to look this way. 

Later, their attorney—hired by their insurance company—argued that as a small business, we lacked the capacity to generate the sales Vieira's Bakery did. We believe this argument was thrown out there in an attempt to insinuate we had no claim to damages.

We believe this argument misinterprets trademark law and undermines the protections it provides to small businesses like ours.

Why Target Us?

We believe Vieira's Bakery targeted us precisely because we are a small business, we have tremendous potential, and we were (and still are) gaining traction on social media. 

As a potential co-packer, they were privy to confidential information about our product, strategy, and vision—all under the protection of an NDA. Yet, they chose to exploit our trust. 

Based on the evidence, we strongly believe their actions were intentional and we believe they stole from us because they were in such close proximity to us.

They didn’t steal from their larger co-packing clients; they stole from us- a new entrant into the fresh bakery category.  

They also assumed we were an easy target due to the confidential information we shared with them as a result of the NDA. They believed they could rip us off, block us out of the marketplace, and profit from our ideas without facing any severe consequences . 

We have borne the brunt of this dispute and will continue to face great repercussions. 

Carlos Vieira, who so proudly shares his start-up story of selling bread out of his car over forty years ago, has already sold MILLIONS of dollars worth of bread. He is coming to the end of his career, while ours is just beginning.

Ironic isn't it? A man who is so proud of starting out with nothing now has an attorney boldly declaring that a small business doesn't have a claim to assert damages when their intellectual property was stolen!

By the way, Vieira's Bakery's insurance company is covering the cost of the lawsuit. They also get to maintain their relationships with customers as evidenced by the 'new replacement' bag they are selling, and they get to keep all the money they made.

Meanwhile, we're the ones who have suffered and will continue to suffer tremendously. 

Knowing that Carleen Vieira (Carlos Vieira’s daughter) and Melissa Calrow sat in our restaurant, touched our burlap bag, praised our vision, and then stole our design makes us sick to our stomachs.

Had they not been in such close proximity to us—including signing an NDA, which we believed would protect our confidential information—it is unlikely they would have stolen from us. They exploited their access to inside information about our scaling process to take what wasn’t theirs and to profit off of it.

Our biggest and only regret is ever approaching them as a potential co-packer.

Fighting for What’s Right

We’ve built our business with grit and determination, all while caring for our elderly parents, who rely on extensive medical care, which we pay for and have been paying for (this is why we started our first business back in 2007). 

Vieira’s Bakery knew our circumstances and the effort we were putting into scaling, and yet, they moved to exploit us before we had a fair shot at scaling nationally. They acted with complete disregard for the NDA, intellectual property laws, our efforts, and our livelihood.

Melissa Calrow, on behalf of Vieira’s Bakery, took our intellectual property and presented it across the United States as if it were her own idea, utilizing longstanding relationships with major distributors, brokers, co-ops, and retail partners.

It’s unconscionable.

Unanswered Questions

Vieira’s Bakery spent two years refusing to stop using the “knockoff bag.” 

But shortly after a court-ordered settlement conference—which achieved nothing—a new bag suddenly appeared on shelves. 

Despite Vieira's Bakery claiming during the settlement conference that they did not know when or if they would stop using the knockoff bag, a new bag  design did in fact appear in retailers.

These designs take time to produce, so we ask:

• How were these new bags developed so quickly, given the timelines typically required for production and distribution?

• Why did retailers adopt them so readily (especially knowing we were locked in a trademark dispute)?

We are seeking clarity to understand these developments.

Our Mission: Accountability, Transparency, and Justice

In our opinion, we believe what happened to us was malicious, intentional, deceitful, and unethical. 

We are determined to expose the truth and hold all parties accountable.

This case isn’t just about a burlap bag. It’s about greed. It’s about enforcing the law. It’s about holding those who violate trademark laws accountable.

There’s more to share as we continue this battle. 

Behind the scenes, additional events have unfolded that we haven’t yet shared, including someone who is somehow related to Melissa (friend, cousin, worker... we are not sure), trolling us online and stating there is another side to this story. This person also has a digital footprint that involves  inappropriate comments that come across as rather racist (go figure).  

There was also an incident in a store that was quite traumatic and devastating which we have remained silent about. 

When the time is right, we’ll speak more about the things that have happened to us and our business as a result of this trademark infringement.

For now, we will continue to fight in order to ensure that justice prevails—not just for us but for every small business owner who dares to dream and works hard towards those dreams.

Vieira's Bakery is being defended by a very large, publicly traded insurance company. We are a small women owned business and we built our businesses from the ground up. There is absolutely no reason for us to have been put into this position of defending what is rightfully ours according to federal trademark laws.

We are determined to continue this fight—not just for our family, but for every small business owner who dares to dream, innovate, and create in the face of adversity. 

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to pursue justice and fight for the rights of small businesses like ours.

Please note that full court documents are aggregated online and you can follow them by clicking the button below.