A hummus and falafel company in the United Kingdom will have to rebrand after 14 years after its name was unwittingly catapulted into the public’s lexicon as a way to share stories of sexual harassment.
Ramona Hazan, founder of the MeToo! vegetarian food line, told The Guardian that sales have dropped significantly since the #MeToo movement began.
“We haven’t got a definitive answer on this, but we are 90 percent sure that our name is not something anyone wants to put on the shelf,” Hazan said in an interview with The Guardian.
When #MeToo began in October 2017 after the sexual misconduct scandal surrounding disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, Hazan briefly considered aligning the brand with the women’s movement.
“I thought, what happens if we really jump into this and use it as a marketing tool. We’re a female-owned business: ‘MeToo! For #MeToo,'” Hazan told The Guardian. Ultimately, Hazan said the company “didn’t want to benefit our business on the back of other people’s suffering.”
On the MeToo! Foods website, Hazan explains the brand’s name came from “my family saying ‘let’s all sit down and catch up’ and me as a little girl shouting ‘me too!’ ‘me too!’ so I wouldn’t be left out.”
Hazan said she will rename her business, but a final decision on the new name has not been made. Hazan did say the new name would be something “a little bit more straightforward.”



