They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery, but when does it cross the line?

In one hand, Emma, our Marketing Director is holding a real onion and in the other she is holding a plastic onion. At first glance you may not see the difference but peel back the layers and the true onion will be revealed.  A great example for an issue we’ve unfortunately been experiencing.

At Heritage, we pride ourselves on original and lateral thinking. Over the last few years, we have been very aware of a competitor often copying our social posts and we’ve not taken much notice.  However, recently it has been brought to our attention that they have plagiarised a large section of our sustainability page on our website to ‘create’ their own page.

To back up this claim we’ve checked out the source data for both our published page and theirs with ours originally published on the 5^th of October 2020 (with an update with new more extensive document link added on the 13^th of March 2024).  They published their page on the 17^th of November 2022 with an update on the 14^th of March 2024.  There are regulations around plagiarism, we will be reporting this through the relevant channels.

We’ve worked and continue to work hard to ensure our messaging on sustainability and in all areas of our business is honest, true and has integrity. To have someone directly copy (without permission) from our website and claim as their own rather than tell their own story in their own words, really crosses the line – and what does it really say about them?

We welcome healthy competition and work in harmony with many other fresh produce wholesalers in the area who share our professional standards.

To end this on a positive note we are having our solar panels installed next week – let’s hope that they do copy this and install some too – some good might actually come out of this!