RETAIL RANDOMS

HOW’D YOU LIKE THEM APPLES?

This one falls under the ‘you couldn’t make it up’ banner. Here’s the story... Stirling Distillery, owned by June and Cameron McCann, recently launched a new Pink Lady gin. Fairly innocuous. Then they received a letter from Apple and Pear Australia Ltd (APAL) threatening legal action against them.

Why, you might naturally wonder? Well, APAL apparently owns the Pink Lady trademark and take a dim view of people using the term without a licence (and, presumably, paying a fee).

Ordinarily, registered trademarks tend to be issued for use within a specific trading sector – in this case, ‘apples’. Or maybe the wider-ranging ‘fruit’. Which begs the question, why does a big Australian company feel threatened by a gin made by a tiny Scottish distillery?

The Stirling Gin owners commented: “We named our latest gin after a famous local legend, The Pink Lady, a young noblewoman who died defending Stirling castle in the siege of 1304.” In other words, it was nothing to do with apples.

As these things tend to work out, the distillery chose to rename and rebrand the gin (at significant cost) rather than face a lengthy legal battle.

BOOKS FOR KIDS? SOUNDS LIKE A FAIR SWAP

While it’s not strictly retail related, we thought we would bring you some news of a great new initiative from The Sun on Sunday. The paper is launching a Books For Kids campaign to help bring the joy of reading to more families during lockdown.

Running for the next four weeks in conjunction with BookTrust, the UK’s largest children’s reading charity, the title is calling on readers to send in their old children’s books, no matter how ripped and tatty they are.

The Sun on Sunday will then pay to recycle them before BookTrust begins free distribution of bright and colourful new publications carefully chosen by its children’s books experts.

Kids’ author David Walliams is backing the initiative. He said: “I wholeheartedly support this campaign. Some of my fondest memories are of reading with my parents and it’s devastating to think some families don’t have access to books.”

The books will be passed on to youngsters who need them most via schools, children’s centres, food banks, refuges and family support teams. Readers can post their old books or send them via a special 70% discounted Hermes collection service without leaving their home.

To get involved, people can either post old books to: Books For Kids, PO Box 485, Grays, Essex RM17 7HY, or send them via Hermes at the reduced cost of £1.99 for a medium-sized box.