https://twitter.com/aisha_jamil/status/615853424782012416
Elham Asaad Buaras
A Tesco store in East London has removed bacon-flavoured crisps as part of their specials Ramadan deals.
Even though the crisps are artificially flavoured and do not contain any pork traces, the marketing initiative triggered amusement on twitter.
Mona Al Qazzaz tweeted: “Please tell me this is a joke”.
Vandana Priya Prasad tweeted: “The irony of it is hilarious! Someone at Tesco thought it would be a good idea to promote Ramadan deals using bacon-flavoured Pringles” while Mohammed Waqas described it as “stupidity at its best”.
Another user added: “That’s me completely lost for words.”
I'm still laughing at those bacon flavored Ramadan themed Pringles tho
— gabs (@gabyycoronel) July 2, 2015
25-year-old Raza Hassan who came across the promotion in a Tesco branch in Liverpool Street thought it was “hilarious” since Muslims are forbidden from eating pork.
“They had other flavours as well, it just seemed someone had stacked them in to the Ramadan promotional one by mistake!” It didn’t offend me at all – but the irony of it was hilarious.”
A Pringles spokesman said that the company had expected the offer to be restricted to its original flavour along with salt and vinegar as well as sour cream and onion.
“We apologise for the mistake, which was made in one store in London. These Pringles cans have now been moved,” the company added.
“It was never our intention to cause any offence and we’ve taken steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
A Tesco spokesman said: “We are proud to offer a wide range of meals and products to meet the needs of our customers during Ramadan. We recognise these Pringles weren’t in the most suitable place and our store colleagues have now moved them.”
Morrisons are also facing criticism from shoppers after Ramadan promotional stickers were placed next to pork products in two of its UK stores.
Both incidents of the stickers celebrating Ramadan being placed over meat products at the supermarket chain were noted in less than a month of each other.
Shoabib Khan, a human rights lawyer living in London, spotted a Ramadan sticker on a freezer containing pigs in blankets and pork sausages at a Morrisons in West London.
Khan, 32, said: “I don’t think it’s offensive but it’s disappointing. If you’re going to do something like that you need to do it properly. I wasn’t offended but other Muslims might have been. They need to be careful about this sort of thing.”
Morrions apologised to Khan over Twitter saying that they were “really sorry” about the ill-placed sticker.
