A bitter war of words between two lookalike neighbouring fishmongers has sparked a verbal battering - with the older outlet accusing its new rival of copying its company.
Fish Universe in Tooting, south west London, has hit out at next-door competitors Fish World after it opened up just a few months ago.
It claims it is trying to pass itself off as their nearly 20-year-old business and accused them of copying staff uniforms, sparking customer confusion.
Employees at Fish Universe used to wear blue suits with the company name and number on.
And now Fish World, which opened last month, are using exactly the same uniform, with identical font, for their staff.
It insists it has done nothing wrong and sells different Jamaican and African seafood and the only reason their outfits are blue are to match the colour of water.
Fuming Fish Universe have now splashed out to change all their staff uniforms to red, to make sure there is no confusion.
The unusual row sparked plenty of comments among community groups who spotted the disclaimer in the shop window.
One joked: 'I can't believe they have opened right next door. Very shellfish of them.'
Another added a comment laden with puns, declaring: 'They probably love this plaice with their heart and sole. Does look and smell a bit fishy though, all the shops in the same roe.'
To make matters worse, warring businesses Fish Universe and Fish World are neighbours
Fish Universe owner Rafa Kashefi, 34, says his neighbours have copied his food business
But Fish Word's Shaqib Hakim, 48, says his shop has done nothing wrong and is not a copy
Fish Universe has gone to the lengths to putting a disclaimer in its window against Fish World
Fish Universe owner Rafa Kashefi, 34, told MailOnline: 'We have had about 60 calls from customers asking what is going on. Every day we get customers ask us what has happened.
'Next door used to be a meat shop until they decided to start selling fish just a month ago.
'This is the family business. My cousin started it 20 years ago when the first branch opened in Walthamstow- the next one to open was in Fulham and then we opened.
'We now have other branches in Sutton, Camden, Croydon, Penge and Hounslow. They copied our design- they use the same light in their displays and they have copied the way we set out the displays.
'We have had to change all our staff uniforms to red because they copied the blue one we had used for seven years. We have other branches all over London who all still use blue uniforms but we have had to change ours.
'We work really hard to bring in customers but what they have done is just creating confusion. ’Some of our customers wonder if they are an extension of us because they are wearing our old uniform and everything is so similar.
’We have even had a couple of complaints about fish from there and had to say it was from next door. We are cheaper than them, we sell ten sea bass for £10 but they only sell seven sea bass for the same price.
'We love the business and have wonderful customers. When we opened the shop there were not many others in the area. We started from scratch, initially didn’t make much money but pulled long days and worked really hard to build the business into what it is now.
Fish Universe claims Fish World copied these blue uniforms, but the rival denies wrongdoing
