By Richard Valdmanis
BOSTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) – Boutique mint-maker VerMints can
keep its name, but its tins need to make clear the candies are
not actualy made in the Green Mountain state, according to a
settlement announced by Vermont’s attorney general on Monday.
Vermont sued VerMints in 2012, arguing that the company
mislabeled its packaging as “Vermont’s All Natural Mints” when
the pastilles are actually produced in the Canadian province of
Quebec.
“Use of the term ‘Vermont’ has great economic value, and
many businesses go to the expense of sourcing their ingredients
and processing within the state in order to market their
products as Vermont products,” Vermont Attorney General William
H. Sorrell said in a news release.
VerMints will also pay $65,000 in the settlement, most of it
in the form of a donation to the Vermont Foodbank.
VerMints, which sells its pastilles in small tins brightly
painted with images of rolling green mountains, autumn leaves,
and falling snow, said it was considering re-incorporating
somewhere else as a result of the dispute.
“If they want to pat themselves on the back by punishing
small businesses, that’s fine,” VerMints President Gary Rinkus
told Reuters by telephone. “We seriously thinking about going to
another state.”
The company incorporated in Vermont in 2000.
Rinkus added that the ‘Ver’ in VerMints did not refer to the
state. Instead it is short for Veritas – the Latin word for
truth.
“These are true mints,” he said. “They can’t make me change
the name.”
(Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
