{"id":292505,"date":"2023-12-03T07:52:23","date_gmt":"2023-12-03T12:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=292505"},"modified":"2023-12-03T07:52:23","modified_gmt":"2023-12-03T12:52:23","slug":"cuban-brands-in-the-u-s-when-nostalgic-nationalism-is-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/cuba-usa\/cuban-brands-in-the-u-s-when-nostalgic-nationalism-is-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuban brands in the U.S.: when \u201cnostalgic nationalism\u201d is business"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cuban-American businessman Luis Felipe Padr\u00f3n did not see it coming that his main job in the weeks that followed the launch of his soft drink brand in the United States would be to defend himself against the accusation of being a \u201ccommunist.\u201d His company, Always Food Sales & Consultant Corp., sold them under the name \u201cCiego Montero\u201d since Padr\u00f3n acquired the rights for the U.S. market to the brand belonging to Los Portales S.A.<\/span><\/p>\n

The soft drinks, which appeared in stores in South Florida in mid-2023, are made in Colombia, following a formula that, according to Padr\u00f3n, reproduces the flavors that remained in the memory of emigrated Cubans. The label is also a copy of the one used by the Los Portales factory in Pinar del R\u00edo. They are flavors and a commercial image that have accompanied Cubans for decades, generating a relationship from which Padr\u00f3n and his associate, lawyer Tony Haber, are now trying to derive economic benefit.<\/span><\/p>\n

In April 2022, Haber managed to take ownership of the Ciego Montero brand in the United States, after Cuba did not renew it before that country\u2019s Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), an agency attached to the U.S. Department of Commerce responsible for issuing patents, and registering trademarks and copyrights. After a few months, Padr\u00f3n contacted it to start the project. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until, shortly after the soft drinks arrived on the shelves, complaints began on social media. Padr\u00f3n himself would be asked in a supermarket if he was a communist, while a rumor spread that the Cuban government made profits from sales in Miami.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what hurts me about this story\u2026, that they tell me that I have ties to a government that I escaped from [sic] 43 years ago and that what it did was hurt me a lot, because I was not happy in Cuba,\u201d Padr\u00f3n lamented in an <\/span>interview<\/b><\/a>\u00a0for <\/span>El Nuevo Herald<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCuban style\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

In addition to Ciego Montero, Luis Felipe Padr\u00f3n claims to own in the United States the Cachito, Guayabita del Pinar and TuKola brands, and the Manacas, Mayabe and T\u00ednima beers; of the latter he said he was about to launch \u201ca production.\u201d In parallel, the company he presides over, Always Food Sales & Consultant Corp., distributes products from the Do\u00f1a Delicias, Findy and Pelly brands, according to him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Do\u00f1a Delicias, Findy and Pelly were created by Papas&Co., a Cuban company established in 1997 under the modality of joint ownership. Although its production on the island has decreased due to the economic crisis, Papas maintains these brands in the market. During the recently concluded Havana International Trade Fair, the company\u2019s stand was decorated with <\/span>giant signs of the three products<\/b><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

During the \u201cthaw\u201d between Cuba and the United States (2014-2016), the number of U.S. brands registered in Cuba doubled (up to over 6,000) and, <\/span>to a lesser extent<\/b><\/a>, the number of official Cuban brands in that country. But Trump\u2019s sanctions, the pandemic and the lack of a favorable policy from the Biden administration interrupted the rapprochement. Under these circumstances, Cuba decided <\/span>not to renew<\/b><\/a> some of its brands in the United States and other countries.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not the first time that Cuban brands or products of supposed Cuban origin have caused controversy outside the country. In October 2020, a <\/span>complaint<\/b><\/a>\u00a0published on X <\/span>\u2014 former Twitter \u2014<\/span> by the CIMEX corporation against the online sale and in physical stores in Canada of a plagiarized Cubita coffee. Around the same time, also in Canada, Cuban emigrants had called for a boycott of another coffee brand that was promoted as Cuban.<\/span><\/p>\n

That last case is unique. Upon inquiry, Reuters\u2019 fact-checking service <\/span>would reveal<\/b><\/a> that the coffee in question was made by a U.S. company called Mayorga Organics, from a mixture of Honduran, Nicaraguan and Peruvian beans. In an interview with the British news agency, Mart\u00edn Mayorga, CEO of the company, said he was surprised by the criticism from Cuban emigrants for his alleged relations with the island\u2019s government, and attributed them to a wrong interpretation of the product\u2019s advertising. \u201cThe concept of Cuban coffee refers to a style and flavor, not literally to it being produced in Cuba,\u201d he justified.<\/span><\/p>\n

The packaging of Mayorga coffee leads to confusion, since it insists on its Cuban origin without providing further explanations about it. Even after that scandal, its <\/span>stores\u00a0<\/b><\/a>on Amazon and other e-commerce platforms privilege its supposed origin, bordering on what could be described as deceptive advertising.<\/span><\/p>\n

Getting around the law<\/b><\/p>\n

On November 13, 2023, the United States House of Representatives <\/span>approved<\/b><\/a>\u00a0a bill that prohibits the \u201cvalidation and use of trademarks\u201d confiscated by the Cuban government after 1959. If it becomes an act \u2014 it still must be endorsed by the Senate and receive the presidential signature \u2014 the text would prevent U.S. courts and government institutions from recognizing the rights of companies based on the island. Currently, Cuban companies can register brands in the United States and even issue complaints to companies based in that country that usurp them.<\/span><\/p>\n

As an example that is not a coincidence, the Republican representative for California Darrel Issa, one of the promoters of the bill in the lower house, declared that day to <\/span>Mart\u00ed Noticias<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 that \u201cthe Cuban regime \u2018had the nerve\u2019 to sell to the United States and the world products that had actually already been stolen, as is the case of <\/span>Havana Club rum<\/b><\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Since it <\/span>bought\u00a0<\/b><\/a>the \u201cbrand with the original recipe\u201d of Havana Club from the Arechabala family in 1994, the Bacardi company became the standard bearer of the economic war against Cuba; in particular, efforts to prevent Cuban brands from being registered \u2014 and potentially marketed \u2014 in the United States. The lawyers of the \u201cbat company\u201d <\/span>played<\/b><\/a>\u00a0a leading role in drafting what would become the <\/span>Helms-Burton Act<\/b><\/a>, and embarked on a long judicial battle for control of the rights of Havana Club in the northern nation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The most recent chapter in that saga occurred in April 2022, when a federal court in the state of Virginia <\/span>ruled in favor<\/b><\/a> of the USPTO in a lawsuit filed against it by Bacardi. The rum company questioned the decision to renew Cubaexport\u2019s rights over Havana Club, pointing out that it prevented it from \u201cregistering its own Havana Club brand,\u201d which it produces in Puerto Rico.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tribunal estadounidense ratifica que la marca Havana Club es propiedad cubana<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n