SAN MARCOS — Local veteran owned business claims their bestselling product’s design was stolen by market titan Munchkin™.

BraveJusticeKidsCo. is a veteran owned business based out of Escondido, CA that specializes in children’s products. The company has a strong focus on offering “safe, eco-friendly, and innovative children’s products,” according to their website.

Owned and operated by husband and wife Dre’As and Brooke Sanchez, they named their company after their children. Dre’As, a veteran of the Afghanistan War where he served as an FMF Navy Corpsman, wanted to start the company to continue helping people. They have three children and created the company with the mission to provide families with safe and ethical products for their children. They got into the business of children’s products after noticing a lack of safe and practical products in the market.

Dre’As and Brooke have also started another company Safely Made Kids™️, a software that tracks and verifies the safety of children’s products. They created Safely Made Kids™️ in response to the numerous recalls of baby products to help bring transparency into the children’s product industry. Safety for families and children is of utmost importance for them and they want to do everything they can to keep kids safe.

“If you go on our website right now, you can click on our products, and it will show laboratory results to prove it’s safe. No other company is doing that right now. Why not? Because the government doesn’t tell you that you have to so they don’t,” said Dre’As.

Their bestselling product is the Snack Attack Snack Cup, a collapsible silicone cup meant to be spill proof and durable. With over 400 positive reviews on their website and over 7,800 positive reviews on their Amazon store, it is their flagship product that they designed and invented. After having had major success with the Snack Attack Snack Cup, Dre’As and Brooke were told about seeing their product on another company’s online store.

Munchkin™ is the largest name in children’s products with offerings spanning from skin care creams to highchairs. They have an estimated annual revenue of $113.6 million according to this report. And received around 37,000 visits to their website in October, 2022 according to this report.

A new product that Munchkin began selling on their online store and in their Amazon store is the C’est Silicone!™ Snack Catcher.

The design cues for Munchkin™‘s new cup are incredibly similar to that of BraveJusticeKidsCo.’s Snack Attack Cup. Due to the resemblance Dre’As and Brooke claim that Munchkin stole their design.

“I don’t know how it came onto their radar, they must’ve been Googling for some ideas and saw our product. Maybe they did some more research and saw that we didn’t have that specific product patented, called their manufacturer and said, ‘We want this exact cup but put our logo on it.’ And now they’re selling it online and on Amazon,” said Dre’As Sanchez.

This move from Munchkin™ left Dre’As and Brooke confused and wanting answers as to why Munchkin™ took their design. There was no attempt at communication from Munchkin™ to acquire the design or sign a partnership.

When asked what they want to do going forward, Dre’As said, “We want Munchkin to respond to us. We want to sit down with them and say, ‘Why would you do this? Did you not realize the negative effects this would have on our family and our kids.’ This has the potential to ruin us.”

BraveJusticeKidsCo. is run out of the Sanchez’s home, and they’ve invested heavily into their company. They sold their last house in order to get money to start this company and have taken on numerous loans to keep it running. Even throughout the rise of inflation they refused to raise their prices, causing them to take financial hits. Dre’As and Brooke weren’t able to put a patent on the Snack Attack Snack Cup due to the fact that they had begun selling the product before they even afford a patent. 

“We put our hearts and souls into this thing. It’s our hard-earned money that we put into this, and all the time we spend sitting at the computer or on a notepad designing these products. But we don’t have the money or the resources to fight back against Munchkin,” said Brooke.

While BraveJusticeKidsCo. doesn’t have a patent on the Snack Attack Snack Cup, all their products are protected by their trademark. Dre’As and Brooke plan to fight back against Munchkin to protect their company and their products. But they don’t want to hold any grudges against Munchkin and would like to be able to give them a second chance.

“Most people if they were in our position would probably give up, but that’s not us. We’re going to keep pushing back and we’re going to keep fighting for what we want to see happen between us and Munchkin,” said Brooke on what they plan on doing going forward.

The Telescope reached out to Munchkin™ for comments on these allegations but did not hear back from the Munchkin™ PR team.