Colin the Caterpillar gets battered in East Kilbride

A chip shop in South Lanarkshire is selling a deep-fried birthday cake popularised by high street retailer Marks & Spencer.

The battered Colin the Caterpillar cake surprised locals in East Kilbride when it appeared on the fryer at Emanuel’s chippie in the St Leonards area of the town.

The cake has made headlines in recent days after M&S lodged an intellectual property claim with the High Court.

It argued the similarity of Aldi’s Cuthbert the Caterpillar leads consumers to believe they are of the same standard and “ride on the coat-tails” of M&S’s reputation with the product.

Ricky Brandon, who owns Emanuel’s chip shop in East Kilbride, told STV News: “The guys at East Kilbride Eats have a couple of chip shops on their app and they put out an appeal asking who would be up for the challenge of deep-frying Colin the Caterpillar.

“We decided to get on board and thought ‘we’ll have a go at that’, we’re always up for a laugh.

There was a fair few customers on Friday who stopped to look at Colin. Some were posing for selfies with him so it’s been amazing.

“We pretty much deep-fry everything – creme eggs, Maltesers, you name it – but Colin the Caterpillar is a one-time deal. We’ve got a couple of the cakes but that will be it.

East Kilbride Eats, a locally based food delivery app in East Kilbride, said it ran the ‘Colin battering’ primarily to raise awareness of the app and to encourage people to use a locally based app rather than big national platforms who take a large cut from local restaurants and takeaways.

M&S launched Colin the Caterpillar around 30 years ago and his appearance has been substantially unchanged since around 2004, except for adaptations for events such as Halloween and Christmas, and related products such as Connie the Caterpillar.

The retailer has three trademarks relating to Colin, which the retailer believes means Colin has acquired and retains an enhanced distinctive character and reputation.

Nevertheless, the M&S original has spawned a range of imitators since its launch, such as Sainsbury’s Wiggles, Tesco’s Curly, Morris by Morrisons, the Co-op’s Charlie, Cecil by Waitrose and Asda’s Clyde.