Broadway Bakery Limited has sued rival bread maker DFL Festive Limited at the Milimani High Court, accusing the company of running a disparaging and misleading advertising campaign targeting its brand, products, and packaging.
The commercial suit, filed on June 11, 2025, and listed under the court’s Commercial Division, names DFL Festive as the defendant and seeks sweeping remedies including injunctions, a mandatory retraction order, and damages.
According to court documents, Broadway Bakery is asking the court for a declaration that the commercial advertisement on social and print media contained in a specific video online amounts to disparaging and misleading advertisement.
The plaintiff wants the Advertising Standards Body of Kenya to hear and determine its complaint, which it filed before the regulatory body on December 13, 2024, and is asking the High Court to direct that process to be handled expeditiously, efficient, and within the timelines that this Honourable Court shall deem fit and just, in accordance with the provisions of Article 47 of the Constitution, as read together with the Fair Administrative Actions Act, Cap 7L Laws of Kenya.
Broadway Bakery is also seeking a mandatory court order compelling DFL Festive to fully retract, delete or pull down the test and tenor of the video from the internet, including from all search engines such as Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo and any other search engines where the disparaging and misleading advertisement may have been published.
At the heart of the dispute appears to be the use of the orange colour on wax paper bread packaging and the use of the word heritage when describing bread, details Broadway Bakery says belong to its brand identity.
The plaintiff is seeking a permanent injunction restraining DFL Festive from publishing and/or causing to be published or reposting any publication making reference to the orange colour for the wax paper packaging of bread and use of the word ‘heritage’ when describing the bread across YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, TikTok, X, and any other social media platforms.
A separate permanent injunction is also being sought against Royal Media Services or any other print media from publishing or causing to be published the contested video.
Broadway Bakery is asking the court to award special damages, general damages for publication of disparaging and misleading advertisement against the Plaintiff,as well as exemplary and aggravated damages.
It is also seeking interest on those damages at Court rates from the date of Judgment until payment in full,plus costs of the suit.
The lawsuit comes against a backdrop of public intrigue surrounding the two companies.
Last year, eagle-eyed consumers flagged that both Broadway Bakery and DFL Festive’s packaging carried identical contact details, a coincidence that sparked widespread speculation on social media about whether the two rival bread brands were, in fact, related or under common ownership.
Neither company publicly addressed those claims at the time.
The matter is still ongoing before the Milimani High Court’s Commercial Division.
