Stars of BBC's Dragons' Den have found themselves in hot water over 'tone deaf' comments made about people who shop at Lidl on the show. Comments about the budget supermarket were aired on Thursday's episode of the show, and have gone down like a lead balloon with viewers.
On the show, the Dragons met with London couple Will Moxham and Hilary Kennedy. The duo were presenting a vegan-specific recipe subscription box to the business moguls - which is competing with the likes of HelloFresh and Mindful Chef.
But while the duo's pitch was impressive, fashion tycoon Touker Suleyman found issue with the box's £45 price tag. Questioning the vegan pair's pitch, he asked why shoppers wouldn't just go and buy the same ingredients at Lidl for less than half the price.
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Responding to Touker, Will said: "I wouldn't use Lidl as a benchmark for our service. It's just not going to happen - the type of people who, up until this point, are paying a premium for this service, are not going to drop this and go to Lidl and plan their meals every week."
He added: "I don't think you're putting yourself into our consumer's shoes." But the response angered some viewers, who took to Twitter to vent their frustrations.
One wrote: "I despise Lidl but I despise snobs even more. How dare you sneer at people that shop there," while a second fumed: "Stuck up vegan p*****, what's wrong with Lidl?"
A third quipped: "Get the feeling he doesn't shop at Lidl often," and another tweeted: " Aldi and Lidl have both won supermarket of the year within the last two years, maybe he should get his head from his a****."
"What a pair of t****. Imagine thinking you're so special because you can throw some ingredients in a box," someone else shared. Another person fumed: "This vegan couple on Dragons Den are absolutely vile “People won’t plan their meals using Lidl food” F*ck offffff."
The couple were looking for a £75,000 investment for a 2.5 percent share in Planthood but the Dragons were not in agreement over the potential for growth in the business.
Dragon Steven Bartlett offered the couple the full amount they were looking for but for a 7.5 percent share in the business, says the Mirror. After talking the offer over, the couple accepted the offer with Will saying: "Pretty incredible. We got what we needed," and Hilary adding: "We're getting married in two weeks, so this is just an unbelievable gift to have."
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