Smucker’s Uncrustables vs. Trader Joe’s: How similar are they?

The biggest thing since sliced bread might just be … crustless bread — filled with peanut butter and jelly.

The maker of Smucker’s Uncrustables sandwiches, those frozen pucks often seen in school lunch boxes, is suing Trader Joe’s over an alleged copycat sandwich on the shelves at the grocery chain. But a key revelation from the lawsuit was that the company claims the product represents a multibillion-dollar business.

The Orrville, Ohio-based J.M. Smucker Co. said in the court filing that it makes an eye-popping 1.5 billion Uncrustables sandwiches a year, and that it has invested a billion dollars in marketing and product development over the past 20 years.

They’re not just a staple for kids (and the harried parents who have to feed them); they’re being wolfed down by the thousands in NFL locker rooms. Kansas City Chiefs star tight end Travis Kelce, a.k.a. the future Mr. Taylor Swift, revealed on his podcast that he scarfs down Uncrustables “probably more than I eat anything else in the world.” They’re often found at the finish lines of races, to refuel runners with carbs and the macronutrient of the moment, protein.

So it’s no wonder that other food companies would want in on the crustless-sandwich game — and that the maker of the original version is making legal moves to protect its product.

In a lawsuit filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Smucker claimed the new Trader Joe’s “Crustless Peanut Butter & Strawberry Jam Sandwiches” violate trademarks the company holds for the design of the product and its packaging. In particular, the lawsuit cites the sandwiches’ shape as a “unique design feature” protected by its trademark. Smucker’s holds a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for “a round pie-like shape with distinct peripheral undulated crimping.”

The company is also complaining that the Trader Joe’s packaging uses an image that it holds an additional trademark for, depicting the sandwich with a bite taken out, revealing the filling inside.

“There are many other commercially viable ways to offer a competitive product without mimicking, copying, or otherwise trading upon the goodwill associated with Smucker’s Uncrustables Design Marks or using packaging that mimics the colors Smucker uses,” it told the court.

The company is asking that Trader Joe’s stop making the products, destroy its remaining stock and pay whatever profits it earned from them as well as unspecified damages to Smucker.

Trader Joe’s did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Smucker alleged that consumers could be tricked into thinking the products are related. It cited online speculation falsely claiming that Smucker is the maker of the Trader Joe’s product, which might have seemed plausible because the grocer uses other independent manufacturers for many of its products that are labeled with the grocery chain’s private brands. Smucker claims that Trader Joe’s “willfully exacerbates the confusion by minimizing or omitting ‘Trader Joe’s’ from its packaging.”

Those moves could hurt Uncrustable sales and “allow Defendant to palm off products as those being produced by, sponsored by or authorized by Smucker,” the lawsuit claims. When reached for comment, the company said in a statement: “Our focus is solely on protecting the unique trademarked design that represents the high quality associated with the Uncrustables brand and preventing consumer confusion caused by imitation.”

How similar are they? We decided to see for ourselves.

Tasters were invited to try Uncrustables and the Trader Joe’s version side by side, without knowing which brand was which. Visually, they seemed “very similar,” several tasters concluded. The TJ’s sandwich had a slightly squared-off shape, but it could pass for a circle if you didn’t look too closely, as one said. The Uncrustables had that “distinct peripheral undulated crimping” (to use the legal parlance) on both the top and bottom slices of the bread, but one eagle-eyed colleague noticed that the Trader Joe’s version was only fluted on one side.

The dome of the Uncrustables seemed taller, we all agreed, and the bread far softer. That last point was divisive: A couple of tasters liked its smooth, “squishy” texture and found the Trader Joe’s coarser (“Is this stale?” one asked), while one preferred the “more natural” texture of Trader Joe’s. And the Uncrustables had a much more pronounced jelly presence than the Trader Joe’s, which one thirsty taster called “a little gluey.”

The Trader Joe’s version was $3.79 for four (95 cents each), and we picked up a box of 10 Uncrustables at a local store for $11.19 ($1.12 each).

Nutritionally, they are similar, with one serving of the Uncrustables (210) containing 10 more calories than TJ’s (200). The Trader Joe’s Crustless sandwich includes one more gram of protein (7) than Smucker’s. The only place where they significantly diverge is in sodium — Uncrustables have 220 mg, more than twice as much as the grocer’s version (85 mg).

Trader Joe’s isn’t the only competitor for lunchbox space, but Smucker seems OK with other brands — at least for now. “Smucker does not take issue with others in the marketplace selling prepackaged, frozen, thaw-and-eat crustless sandwiches,” the lawsuit states. “But it cannot allow others to use Smucker’s valuable intellectual property to make such sales.”

Grocery store private labels in particular have come up with their own versions of the lunchtime juggernaut. Walmart’s Great Value brand offers a variety of “No Crust Sandwiches,” although theirs are squared off and the packaging uses different colors and an image of a sandwich that’s sliced, not bitten. Aldi’s “Lunch Buddies Crustless Sandwiches” uses similar packaging, with sliced sandwiches. The box for Target’s house brand, Good & Gather’s “SunButter & Strawberry Jelly” sandwiches (which are made with sunflower-seed butter), does feature a bitten-off sandwich, but also an anthropomorphized strawberry jumping into the filling.

Smucker has taken other legal actions to protect Uncrustables in recent years. In 2023, it sued the Chinese manufacturer of products sold on Amazon that claim to cut sandwiches into Uncrustable shapes. Smucker won the case by default when the defendant never showed up.

And Trader Joe’s has been targeted by other companies claiming copycats. In 2016, the grocer settled a lawsuit brought by Pepperidge Farm, which had said Trader Joe’s Crispy Cookies too closely mimicked its Milano cookies. The terms of the agreement between the two companies were not made public.

However the court battle over crust-free peanut butter and jelly sandwiches plays out, it seems America’s scorn for crusts isn’t going anywhere. One colleague who sampled the goods described how her daughter and her friends often peel the crimped edge off their Uncrustables, deeming even that to be too much crust, to which another colleague mused: “Is there no end to the crustless-ness?”