Snoop Dogg’s Dr. Bombay ice cream brand, Bosslady Foods, is reportedly taking Edible Arrangements, which sells fresh fruit arrangements, to federal court over a single word: “Swizzle.”
The dispute centers around Dr. Bombay’s Tropical Sherbet Swizzle flavor, launched in 2023. The name draws on both the playful “-izzle” suffix popularized by Snoop and the classic tropical cocktail stirrer.
The Swizzle Suit
Edible Arrangements, known for its chocolate-covered fruit bouquets, claims it holds trademark rights to “Swizzle” and sent cease-and-desist letters to Bosslady shortly after the sherbet’s release, AllHipHop reports. In response, Snoop’s company filed a lawsuit arguing that Edible’s trademarks only cover chocolate-dipped fruit, not frozen desserts, and that the term is too generic to block use. Snoop owns Dr. Bombay’s with his son Cordell Broadus and Happi Co. CEO Sam Rockwell.
According to Harvard Business Review, since launching in 2023, the brand has secured placement in 80 percent of U.S. national grocery retailers and projected $20 million in first-year sales.
Bosslady’s attorneys contend that “Swizzle” has been widely used in the food industry to describe decorative syrup drizzles. They also pointed to entrepreneur Shari Fitzpatrick, founder of Shari’s Berries, as the originator of the term in her chocolate-covered fruit creations.
Todd S. Sharinn, Bosslady’s lawyer, said, “By her own account, Shari Fitzpatrick—the owner of Shari’s Berries and Berried in Chocolate, among others—came up with the term ‘swizzle’ one day while drizzling chocolate syrup on fruit. Fitzpatrick did not use or register the ‘swizzle’ term as a trademark, opting instead to place it into the public domain as a signifier for the act of decoratively drizzling syrup on fruit and other foodstuffs, as well as the resulting ‘swizzle’ design or pattern thereby created.”
The lawsuit also claims that Edible misled the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by asserting that no one else had rights to the term, even though Fitzpatrick had publicly used it.
Bosslady is asking the court to cancel six of Edible’s trademarks, block the company from using “Swizzle” on ice cream, and award monetary damages.
The lawsuit is underway in Connecticut. Although Edible Arrangements has been based in Atlanta since 2018, its headquarters previously was based in Connecticut.
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