Aldi’s Reputation Dented As Court Hammers It For Stealing From Aussie Baby Food Start-Up, Little Bellies… Again

Aldi has come out of its Federal Court appeal against Australian baby food brand, Little Bellies, in a worse position than it went in, with the Full Court not only upholding the original copyright infringement findings but extending them to two additional products in the supermarket’s Mamia toddler snack range.

The decision takes the total number of Aldi products found to infringe Little Bellies’ packaging copyright from three to five. The Court also upheld a finding that Aldi is liable for additional damages, with the matter now returning to the trial judge for the determination of how much those damages will be.

The ruling, handed down by Justices Burley, Moore and Owens, noted that Aldi went “slightly backwards overall” despite succeeding in demonstrating that the original trial judge had applied an incorrect analytical approach.

How Aldi used Little Bellies as a benchmark

The case centres on Aldi’s redesign of its Mamia baby snack range, which launched in 2021. Evidence before the Court established that Aldi’s design agency, Motor Brand Design, was provided with Little Bellies packaging as a “benchmark” to emulate when creating the Mamia range.

Internal documents showed Aldi instructed its designers to “follow the architecture” of the Little Bellies products. When an early design came back too close to the benchmark, Aldi received feedback that it was “too close” and made modifications to create slightly more distance.

The Full Court’s unchallenged finding was that Aldi’s design process was intended to create packaging that resembled Little Bellies’ products “albeit not too closely, because that would infringe the law.”

The Court found that rather than undertake its own independent design process, Aldi set out to obtain the benefit of somebody else’s intellectual and creative effort while attempting to stay on the right side of the legal line.

The trial judge got the method wrong

The 2024 trial, presided over by Justice Moshinsky, found three Aldi baby puffs products infringed Little Bellies’ copyright but cleared eight other Mamia products. Both sides appealed.

The Full Court found the trial judge’s analytical approach was flawed in two key respects. First, the judge had identified design features at too high a level of abstraction, essentially creating a checklist of generalised elements and ruling them wholly present or absent rather than undertaking a nuanced, side-by-side visual comparison of each pair of products.

For example, the trial judge described the cartoon character on the Little Bellies packaging as “a small, oval-shaped cartoon character, with a large, light-coloured belly.” Because the owl on certain Aldi products was larger, the judge ruled the character element absent from those products entirely, removing it from the infringement analysis despite clear visual similarities including the distinctive light-coloured belly with writing inside it.

Second, the trial judge failed to properly consider evidence about the originality of the Little Bellies packaging when assessing whether a substantial part had been reproduced. Evidence from the designer who created the Little Bellies range was largely overlooked in the infringement analysis.

The Full Court redid the analysis

Rather than sending the case back for a fresh trial, the Full Court conducted its own product-by-product, side-by-side comparison across all eleven Aldi products in dispute.

The three Aldi baby puffs products, covering blueberry, apple and cinnamon, and carrot varieties, were again found to infringe. In each case, the Court identified a combination of similarities that together constituted a substantial part of the corresponding Little Bellies work: strikingly similar photographs of ingredients and puffs, matching colour palettes, a distinctive child-like font with misaligned letters, a two-column layout, irregular hand-drawn rectangular boxes and similarities in the cartoon characters, particularly the distinctive off-white circular belly.

The Court noted that while Aldi’s owl characters differed from Little Bellies’ orange “monster” characters in significant ways, including being a different animal with different details, the visual similarities in the light-coloured belly with writing, general shape, small ears and smiling mouth contributed materially to the overall finding.

However, unlike the trial judge, the Full Court found each Aldi puffs product infringed only the corresponding Little Bellies product of the same flavour, not all three Little Bellies puffs designs. The striking similarity in ingredient photography and colour schemes was specific to each flavour pairing.

Two more products caught

The Full Court’s fresh analysis also brought two Aldi non-puffs products into the infringement column for the first time.

The Mamia Fruit and Oat Bars Apricot product was found to infringe because its orange owl shared the same colour as the Little Bellies character, and the round, light-coloured belly with dark green writing inside it was a particularly distinctive and original feature. Combined with matching green shades, child-like fonts, a similar layout with the cartoon character upper-left and ingredients lower-right, and irregular green rectangular boxes, the Court concluded the similarities were “just” sufficient to constitute a substantial part.

A Mamia Fruit Snack Cereal Bars product featuring blueberries was also found to infringe, partly because the photographs of blueberries and the use of blue writing brought it closer to the Little Bellies blueberry design.

Six other Mamia products were cleared. In several cases, the colour of the owl on the Aldi product was a determining factor. Where the owl was green, pink or purple rather than orange, it lacked the colour match to the Little Bellies character that tipped the balance toward infringement in the apricot bars case.

The originality question

A significant element of the Full Court’s reasoning concerned the originality of the Little Bellies packaging, which the trial judge had not properly examined.

Evidence from B&B Studio founder and Creative Director, Mr Bowen, detailed an iterative design process involving a team of designers, multiple concepts, client feedback, and deliberate choices around colour palette, typography, illustration style and photography layout. The white background was chosen to express freshness. The fonts were selected to feel friendly and personal rather than functional. Real food photography was laid out in non-rigid patterns to add playfulness and movement.

The Full Court found this evidence demonstrated that significant skill, effort and creativity went into creating the packaging, and that a material part of that effort had been appropriated by Aldi. Unlike cases where substantial labour is unrelated to the particular form of expression, the marketing and design skill behind the Little Bellies packaging contributed directly to its visual expression.

Aldi pointed to evidence that individual elements such as playful cartoon characters, pictures of fruit, white backgrounds and age indicators were common in children’s food packaging. The Full Court accepted that not much weight should be placed on the white background or age indicator alone, but noted there was no evidence of any other product combining these elements in the particular way Little Bellies had. The evidence of what already existed in the market served to “emphasise the very large number of ways in which Aldi could have chosen to present its packaging, rather than choosing to emulate the Hampden Works.”

Flagrant conduct and additional damages

The Full Court upheld the trial judge’s finding that Aldi’s conduct was flagrant, a prerequisite for additional damages under the Copyright Act.

The Court noted that Aldi deliberately developed packaging that resembled a trade rival’s designs and sought to use those designs for its own commercial advantage. While Aldi may have intended to avoid crossing the legal line, it courted the risk.

“Aldi could have used any packaging of its own design, but chose to emulate the Hampden Works for its own benefit,” the Full Court observed. “If Aldi chooses to conduct its business in that manner, it runs the risk that infringement will lead to additional damages.”

What Little Bellies had to say

Co-Founder and Managing Director of Little Bellies, Clive Sher, welcomed the outcome.

“We are delighted that the Full Court not only upheld the original judgment of infringement by Aldi but also extended it to five designs instead of three,” Sher commented.

He pointed to the Full Court’s observation that Aldi deliberately chose to emulate Little Bellies’ designs rather than creating its own.

“We regard this as a vindication for brand owners who invest considerably in their brand equity,” Sher added.

“Taking on a global retailer is not something any independent business does lightly. We pursued this because we believed the principle mattered, and we hope this decision gives other Australian brands greater confidence that their creative work and brand equity can and should be protected.”

Little Bellies was founded in Australia by brothers Clive and Steven Sher and has grown from a family business into a baby and toddler snack brand sold domestically and internationally. It posts its origin story on its website saying,

Little Bellies was born when one of our own children was diagnosed with severe food sensitivities, and we discovered safe snack options for kids like him were seriously limited. This inspired us to create our range of natural, organic, nutritious and delicious snacks all kids can enjoy — and parents can feel confident in choosing.

As two brothers with 7 young children between us, we know feeding kids can sometimes feel complex and overwhelming. It’s our mission to make it simple (and natural) by creating only the best quality food for kids, age and stage appropriate, free from unnecessary salt and sugar, artificial additives, and genetically modified ingredients.

Aldi likes to position itself internationally as the champion of the people – going up against major supermarkets in each region. Its decision to steal the business from an Aussie battler start-up dents this reputation, but to what degree, time will tell.

It also raises questions regarding its partner marketing agency, Lumitas (formally SBM) who, for a second time, have helped a client try to steal from a much smaller entity only to have the situation blow-up in its face. Lumitas was recently chosen as the new name because it means ‘light and truth.’

Broader implications for the dupe economy

The case arrives amid a broader cultural moment for product dupes, where businesses across retail produce lookalikes of competitors’ products that sit between inspiration and infringement.

Aldi has built a significant part of its retail model around this approach. A now-famous advertising campaign from the 2010s carried the slogan “Like Brands, Only Cheaper.”

The Full Court’s judgment clarifies how Australian copyright law applies to packaging design in this context. Copyright does not protect a general style or get-up, and designing a product that takes inspiration from a competitor is not inherently unlawful. But deliberately copying the distinctive elements that make an original product recognisable carries legal risk.

The Court was careful to distinguish between the idea behind a design and its particular form of expression. Using a playful cartoon character on children’s food packaging is a concept anyone can employ. But reproducing specific visual elements of another brand’s character, combined with matching colour palettes, similar fonts, comparable photography arrangements and shared layouts, can cross the line into infringement.

The judgment noted the assessment is not a simple quantitative exercise but a qualitative one that considers the originality and importance of what has been taken, even where no single element has been precisely reproduced.

Costs

Neither party was ordered to pay the other’s appeal costs. The Court found both sides had mixed results: Aldi succeeded in showing the trial judge’s approach was wrong and defended six of its products, while Little Bellies advanced its position by gaining infringement findings on two additional products. Each party will bear its own costs of the appeal and cross-appeal.

The matter now returns to the trial judge for the assessment of damages across all five infringing products.

Last Updated on September 5, 2026 by Nick Ross