A New Zealand cake shop owner says Chrissy Teigen is "stomping on small business" after accusing the supermodel of copying her cake mix design.
Co-owner of The Caker, Jordan Rondel accused Teigen of copying her brand after the pair collaborated earlier this year to create a kit for a spiced carrot and salted caramel cake.
Just weeks after the pair collaborated, Teigen released her own line of cake mix that looked very similar to Rondel's brand.
Rondel told AM it isn't about a celebrity ripping off The Caker, but instead a larger and more prominent business allegedly copying Rondel's idea and walking away with "more rewards".
Intellectual property Iawyer Gus Hazel later told AM should Rondel pursue legal action, she would have to source evidence that Teigen did copy her brand.
"There's obviously been some collaboration so you'd need to work through who contributed what etc."
Rondel told AM she hasn't heard from Teigen since the stoush blew up online, and says it's unlikely they would talk again.
"I don't really know what it would gain."
Rondel said Teigen and her team "will certainly be aware of everything that's going on" following the uproar from a community that doesn't "want to see this much similarity in a new product".
"It's just the way it was done."
Rondel added she didn't invent cake mixers but did enter the market in a novel way.
"[In a] elevated, luxury kind of extension of what cake mix is currently."
Rondel initially wasn't going to point out the similarities between her and the supermodels brand until her followers did.
"I could've gone on with my 12-hour day of work but there was enough momentum in here, I wanted to thank them for pointing it out."
The Caker and Craving first began working with each other in February when Teigen reached out to Rondel on Instagram.
"Chrissy had reached out to me personally on Instagram and said 'I'm obsessed with everything you do' and so I said 'let's work together'."
Rondel said within a week the two companies began work to create a cake mix after landing on a carrot cake, Teigen's favourite flavour.
"We did about three months of work on it, which is quite a rigorous process, recipe testing has to be perfect, you know samples back and forth."
But by April, Cravings reached out again indicating they were calling the collaboration off.
"We asked why, and the reason was because they were coming up with their own line of mixes."
She said while they knew Teigen would be coming out with their own line, she didn't expect the two brands to look so similar.
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