Take three men, one woman, two kettle braais and a rooftop in Braamfontein and what do you get? The battle of the braais, of course — to ascertain which kettle braai brand gives consumers the best braai for their money.
Granted a poolside braai, six storeys high on Jozi’s Jorrisen Street, with a woman at the tong-helm, so to speak, aren’t elements traditionally associated with the quintessential cook-off. But it came about because of a three-year-long legal battle between two kettle braai manufacturers. And, as in our courts of law, it was Weber versus Cadac. In this case the best boerie roll would win … more or less.
Cadac announced last week that it was attaching a number of United States giant Weber-Stephen’s South African trademarks to try to recoup legal costs ordered against Weber when it lost its infringement action against Cadac. Weber alleged that Cadac had infringed on its trademark and created counterfeits of its kettle braai.
But, back to the braai-off … On the menu were chicken sosaties, boerewors, some vegetarian patties, with some of the Cape’s finest white thrown in. We used Weber’s 57cm One Touch Gold kettle and Cadac’s 57cm Charcoal Pro.
One topic of discussion was the legal battle of the braais. The case began in the Roodepoort Magistrate’s Court in 2004 when Weber got a warrant to attach Cadac stock for allegedly infringing on Weber’s trademark. Cadac in turn took Weber to the high court to overturn the warrant, which it did successfully, and Weber was ordered to pay costs. In 2005 Weber took the case to the Supreme Court of Appeal, but the court upheld the ruling in favour of Cadac, including the costs order against Weber.
Cadac said its rival took so long to pay the legal costs, it was forced to recoup its money by obtaining an order of attachment for Weber trademarks in South Africa. Through a sheriff of the court the trademarks, including Weber and Smokey Joe, could then be auctioned off to the highest bidder — including retailers who sell Webers in their stores. Needless to say, legal costs were paid to Cadac last Thursday.
But Weber will not go down without a fight. Merlin Stols, director of Galactex, Weber-Stephen’s South African distributor, said the non-payment of costs was due entirely to an administrative error and, while legal costs had been paid, Weber-Stephens was likely to pursue legal action against Cadac for trademark infringement. Weber-Stephens was ”upset” and would pursue further action, he said.
The company takes trademark in-fringement seriously and constantly battles copycat kettle braais across the globe, said Stols. While its product is not patented, its distinctive shape was trademarked in South Africa, he said.
In intellectual property law the only requirement for a trademark registration is that an item be ”distinctive”, an expert said. One couldn’t trademark the shape of a toaster or kettle, for instance, because it is too general. However, the shape of a Coca-Cola bottle is distinctive and has been trademarked, as has the shape of BMW’s distinctive bonnet.
But Cadac chief executive Simon Nash was adamant that Cadac had simply created a better product. ”When we develop something we try to better what’s out there,” he said.
Nash listed a number of improvements, including an ash catchment tray, a stainless steel drip tray and charcoal tray, all of which come standard with all Cadac kettle braais. An additional vent on the braai dome and curled edges to the dome and bowl that prevent corrosion are other improvements.
Nash said Cadac was ”proud of” these ”significant differences”. ”This was a legal trick to try to win a commercial advantage,” he said. ”It’s like taking the shape of a car with four wheels and saying ‘that’s my trademark’.”
But Stols said the Cadac kettle braai was basically the same product with some small changes to the design. ”We have a number of anecdotal accounts from customers and shop assistants where Weber products are labelled Cadac and Cadac products are labelled Weber [because of the similarities].”
He said because of this kind of confusion Weber-Stephens was protective of its kettle braai design. Stols was adamant that the Weber brand is synonymous with better quality, since the family-owed company manufactures Webers in the US.
Cadac products are manufactured in China. Nash maintained that operations were moved there because of the excessive price of steel in South Africa. Cadac’s long and highly publicised battle with Mittal Steel — to pressure the company to reduce prices — could explain why it decided to head east.
But the company’s history of taking on big fish doesn’t end with Weber or Mittal Steel. Cadac has taken on a large US telemarketing company for copying its skottle-braai under the name ”Red Devil”.
Nash said that while Cadac had improved on an existing product, the Red Devil was a direct copy that left Cadac, the skottle-braai creator, out of the financial loop entirely.
Regardless of whether the Cadac braai differs from or is exactly the same as a Weber, one area of difference is price. The standard Cadac Charcoal Pro retails at Makro for R899, while the Weber compact kettle, a basic model, goes for R999. The price rises through the Weber ranks to as much as R1 999 for Weber Gold One Touch, the only Weber kettle braai with an ash catcher and the model used in our cook-off. Dion sells the Cadac Charcoal Pro for about R1 100 in stores, while Weber’s Gold One Touch goes for R2 900.
As to the taste of the food? Both products made an average soya burger infinitely tastier. The chicken sosaties in both cases were moist and, despite their lemon and garlic marinade, both samples assumed a nice smoky flavour. The boerewors was a little dry in both cases — but that might have been due to the chief braai-tong holder getting a little too carried away in conversation.
Participants in the braai-off agreed both kettle braais accomplished the same thing — a tasty meal.
