A Minneapolis company called Microtrace is accusing private-label food manufacturing giant TreeHouse Foods of “reverse engineering” proprietary technology used to identify Keurig-style coffee pods.
In a lawsuit filed Sept. 30 in the U.S. District Court of Minnesota, Microtrace alleges that Chicago-area-based TreeHouse, its subsidiary Bay Valley Foods, and a third party, ProAmpac Holdings, breached contracts while misappropriating Microtrace’s proprietary “taggant ink” technology.
Taggants are typically microscopic identifiers, giving unique spectral signatures, or “fingerprints,” to many branded products.
According to the lawsuit, the dispute dates back to at least 2014, when the Keurig company signaled to the market that it was introducing a new brewing system, the 2.0, that would not allow for compatibility with coffee pods that were not licensed or produced by Keurig.
Keurig introduced its 2.0 brewer line in August of 2014. The machines boasted “proprietary interactive capabilities” designed to identify only Keurig-licensed K-Cups. “Keurig Coffee Maker” by JeepersMedia is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
The suit alleges that TreeHouse saw the Keurig 2.0 rollout as a “significant threat to its business,” and thus the company enlisted Microtrace to develop taggant technology to engineer pods that could work with the new Keurig machines.
Microtrace and TreeHouse, through its subsidiary Bay Valley Foods, entered into a series of agreements in which Microtrace licensed proprietary taggant ink technology to TreeHouse and supplied the ink to a designated third-party printer, ProAmpac, for use on pod lids, according to the lawsuit.
In 2021, TreeHouse and its subsidiary decided to end the contract. Microtrace now claims that TreeHouse and ProAmpac continued to manufacture and sell Keurig-compatible pods that “reflect improper use, reliance on, and reverse engineering of Microtrace’s proprietary taggant ink, taggant ink technology and confidential information.”
As of this writing, neither TreeHouse foods nor ProAmpac have responded to DCN’s requests for comment.
At the end of 2023, TreeHouse Foods completed the acquisition of Farmer Brothers’ North Texas coffee production and distribution facility, including its non-direct-store-delivery business, for $100 million.
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