![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CFSCHDYJ4ZDJDGC3YNPP3HR5I4.JPG\")
Lily Bond Ottawa entrepreneur Lily Bond poses with her brand of seasonings, Spyce Girlz. <\/p>\nA young Ottawa entrepreneur is being forced to change the name of her company after lawyers for the supergroup Spice Girls threatened to sue her for trademark infringement.<\/p>\n
Lily Bond, 22, started her own line of food seasonings, \u201cSPYCE GIRLZ\u201d nine years ago. She will now have to abandon the name, just as major grocery stores across Canada have expressed interest in carrying her product.<\/p>\n
In 2017, at the age of 13, Bond started selling her taco spice at farmers\u2019 markets as a way to earn extra money to buy a laptop for school. Bond and her mother became regular fixtures at local markets, where customers regularly referred to the duo as the \u201cspice girls.\u201d<\/p>\n
The name stuck.<\/p>\n
To differentiate her brand from the supergroup, Bond replaced the \u201cI\u201d in spice with a \u201cY\u201d and put a \u201cZ\u201d at the end of \u201cgirls.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a cult following, and the lines just started growing and growing \u2014 then grocery stores started carrying me,\u201d Bond told CTV News.<\/p>\n
What started as a side hustle turned into a full-time job after she graduated from high school. Although she\u2019s taking business management at the University of Ottawa, Bond spends more time mixing ingredients in a commercial kitchen and dealing with inventory than she does in classes.<\/p>\n
In January 2022, Bond applied to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada to trademark \u201cSpyce Girlz Seasonings.\u201d It was approved in October 2023.<\/p>\n
But less than three months after getting federal approval, the Spice Girls made it clear what they really, really want.<\/p>\n
\u2018How did they even know about us?\u2019<\/p>\n
In a letter sent by courier, lawyers from the Ottawa law firm Smart & Biggar notified Bond that their clients, Spice Girls, were opposing her trademark application for her seasonings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were an international pop group. How did they even know about us?\u201d Bond said, adding that the band\u2019s legal action left her confused.<\/p>\n
Lily Bond Ottawa entrepreneur Lily Bond poses with her brand of seasonings, Spyce Girlz. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey built a brand around female empowerment. \u2026 I thought it was about women supporting women.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter dated Jan. 29, 2024 states that the British female pop group has sold more than 105 million records worldwide, \u201cmaking them the best\u2011selling female group of all time,\u201d and the \u201cmost successful British pop act since the Beatles.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawyers said that Bond\u2019s SPYCE GIRLZ brand is \u201clikely to lead the average Canadian consumer to mistakenly believe that your goods are somehow associated with our clients.\u201d It was also noted that the term SPYCE GIRLZ is identical in sound to the name of the pop group.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order for our client to preserve and protect the validity and value of its trademark,\u201d Smart & Biggar demanded that Bond withdraw her trademark and destroy all the \u201carticles, packaging, or other matter in your possession\u201d with the labels.<\/p>\n
If there was no \u201cimmediate compliance,\u201d the lawyers for the Spice Girls threatened to commence \u201clegal and opposition proceedings.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018I didn\u2019t want to be timid\u2019<\/p>\n
Bond is not a Spice Girls fan. She prefers AC\/DC, and as the hard rockers would sing \u2014 she\u2019s got spunk. Bond found out that despite protecting their trademark on hundreds of items from cosmetics to clothes, to video cameras and games to shoes and pens, the Spice Girls did not list \u201cseasonings\u201d as a protected good.<\/p>\n
Unwilling to give up nearly a decade of work without a fight, Bond filed a Section 45 proceeding to force the pop icons to defend their trademark categories in Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t want to be timid and just kind of take it and move on,\u201d said Bond, who has learned to advocate for herself through entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n
Since receiving the cease\u2011and\u2011desist letter in 2024, the pressure on Bond has grown. Her product line has expanded beyond taco spice to include Montreal steak, Greek, and Sunday dinner seasonings. Spyce Girlz is now in 150 Ontario grocery stores including Farm Boy and Longo\u2019s. <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/DCENRLHFZZBO7OG4ZAMTVYR4GY.JPG\")
Spyce Girlz Bond rents time in a commercial kitchen to mix her own seasonings. British super girl group, The Spice Girls, say her products, Spyce Girlz Seasonings infringes on their trademark. <\/p>\n
Bond says her spices are bringing in more than $100,000 and she can\u2019t afford to hire a lawyer to take on a pop group with deep pockets in a protracted fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was representing myself, and I kind of had to make the decision: do I continue with this battle\u2026 or do I continue putting it into operations?\u201d <\/p>\n
Bond says she\u2019s exhausted after navigating intellectual property legal matters on her own for nearly a year. She has made the decision to give up the trademark fight so she can focus on growing the company. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just going to have to keep my head held high and find another name.\u201d <\/p>\n
She also has to get rid of 10,000 packages of SPYCE GIRLZ seasonings before she can relaunch under a new name that is yet to be determined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A young Ottawa entrepreneur is being forced to change the name of her company after lawyers for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[712,43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-507671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}