Founder of ‘MeToo!’ hummus brand says she’ll change the name

The founder of a UK-based hummus and falafel business said she plans to change her company’s name after the global movement calling out sexual harassment in the workplace used the same phrase.

Ramona Hazan founded her “MeToo!” vegetarian food line 14 years ago, and told The Guardian that she thinks a recent decline in sales could be linked to the rise of the #MeToo movement.

“We haven’t got a definitive answer on this, but we are 90 percent sure that our name is not something anyone wants to put on the shelf,” Hazan told The Guardian in an interview this month.

{mosads}She has not yet decided on a new name for the hummus and falafel products, but told the paper that she wants to pick something “a little bit more straightforward.”

Hazan said she considered leaning in to the new association and using it as a marketing tool.

“We’re a female-owned business: ‘MeToo! For #MeToo,’” she said. “But we didn’t want to benefit our business on the back of other people’s suffering.”

The company’s name is a reference to Hazan’s childhood memories of wanting to be included in family games with her two older siblings.

The #MeToo hashtag took off in the fall of 2017 after women in Hollywood and other industries, catapulted by an investigation into disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein, began coming forward to address sexual harassment and assault in the workplace.