Beyond Meat Hit With $39 Million Verdict in Dunkin’ Ad Trial

Beyond Meat Inc.'s slogan “Great Taste, Plant-Based” in joint Dunkin’ Donuts ads infringed a trademark registered by a competitor in the meat alternative industry, a federal jury ruled, awarding $38.9 million in damages.

The jury returned the verdict for Sonate Corp.—known as Vegadelphia Foods—after seven days of testimony one year after Dunkin Donuts settled its way out of the suit in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Sonate said Beyond Meat’s and Dunkin’ Brands Inc.'s infringement of its “Where Great Taste is Plant-Based” trademark tanked talks with two food industry executives about a partnership that could have valued the small producer at $100 million within years. All this during the hottest two years the meat alternatives industry had ever seen.

“Vegadelphia couldn’t be more grateful that the jury understood the long road and severe damage Beyond Meat inflicted upon one of their competitors,” Sonate’s attorney Ben Wagner of Troutman Pepper Locke LLP said in an interview after the verdict.

Attorneys for Beyond Meat declined to comment as they left the courtroom.

The verdict granted Sonate $23.5 million in actual damages for Beyond Meat’s infringement, plus $15.4 million in disgorged profits. The sum topped the $36.75 million figure that Sonate had urged the jury to award it, based on a variety of measures including lost profits and the potential value of the business expansion.

The jury’s weighing of the evidence rejected Beyond Meat’s claims that its similar slogan was fair use and set aside the company’s arguments that Sonate’s line was a “weak mark” with “no commercial strength.”

When Beyond Meat discovered Sonate’s trademark, it determined its use of “Plant-Based, Great Taste”—as well as the reverse “Great Taste, Plant-Based”—was distinct enough not to cause a legal issue, the company’s attorney Dana Hobart of Buchalter told the jury.

Sonate filed its lawsuit in Florida federal court in 2022 before it was transferred to Massachusetts the following year.

Beyond Meat is represented by Buchalter, Goulston & Storrs PC and Exoro Law.

The case is Sonate Corp. v. Beyond Meats Inc., D. Mass., No. 1:23-cv-10690, damages verdict 11/24/25.