The Discontinued Item That Sent Wendy's Into A Legal Battle

Like other fast food chains, Wendy's has had its fair share of legal battles. There was the infamous finger being found in the chili incident. (Don't worry, Wendy's chili is safe to eat; it ended up being a hoax by the customer.) A trademark issue resulted in not being able to use its name and brand in Belgium, Luxembourg, or the Netherlands due to a fish and chips shop with the same name. In fact, even a discontinued product was also cause for a lawsuit: S'Awesome sauce.

S'Awesome sauce was described as smoky, creamy, tangy, with a little bit of heat, almost like a creamy BBQ sauce. Looking at the label, it contains key flavor ingredients like tomato paste, garlic mustard seed, apple cider vinegar, hot sauce, and tangy tamarind. Introduced in 2017, it was discontinued a few years ago and removed from Wendy's menu in October 2021. It was incredibly popular; there is even a petition to bring back the sauce on Change.org. Until that gets more traction, fans will have to content themselves with one of the knock-off recipes you can find online.

Before Wendy's glorious S'Awesome sauce, there was another sauce company using the same catchphrase on its label, an Illinois-based sauce maker named Jaymo's Sauces. According to the lawsuit, Jaymo's Sauces added the "S'Awesome" label to the brand's sauce bottles in January 2016. Originally, the idea and phrasing were created earlier in 2015 at a product demonstration, when someone called what they had sampled "Saucesome". The lawsuit did not stem from having similar products but from the use of the phrase and branding "S'Awesome". Long story short, Jaymo's filed a lawsuit against Wendy's claiming Illinois trademark infringement.

In the end, Jaymo's wasn't successful. The court asked to see that the sauce company had been using "S'Awesome" as a trademark and that the bottle labels featured the branding prominently. The small sauce company could not deliver this proof, and the court dismissed the lawsuit along with Wendy's counterclaims against Jaymo's, leaving both parties free to continue using "S'Awesome." 

The removal of S'Awesome sauce from Wendy's menu was therefore not caused by the lawsuit. Initially, the sauce was meant to be specifically paired with chicken tenders — which were removed from the menu in 2017. However, the S'Awesome sauce survived a few years past the tenders. The fan-favorite condiment made its way onto a burger menu item, the S'Awesome Bacon Classic Cheeseburger. Wendy's French fries are ranked pretty high against other fast food brands, and the S'Awesome was a good dip alternative to plain ole' ketchup.

Still, in 2021, the sauce disappeared from the menu. The fast-food chain never explicitly stated why the sauce was discontinued, but it was likely due to menu restructuring and the introduction of new sauces, like the Ghost Pepper Ranch, which was added in 2021. Jaymo's still exists today, but under a different name, "Jaymo's Natural Foods". The "S'Awesome" label is still present on the label of bottles of its bourbon, sweet n' heat, and classic sauce (which appears to be a BBQ sauce).