A 'sneering' comment about budget supermarket Lidl shoppers during a pitch on Dragons' Den pitch left BBC viewers fuming. London couple Will Moxham and Hilary Kennedy were looking for investment for their vegan meal kit brand Planthood.
The business owners' subscription-based service offers plant-based meal kits for £45 each, reported The Mirror. They were looking for a £75,000 investment for a 2.5 percent share in the business, but the dragons could not agree over the potential for growth.
Touker Suleyman, questioned why customers would pay so much for a kit when they could buy the ingredients themselves for much cheaper at Lidl. Will began: "I wouldn't use Lidl as a benchmark for our service" as Touker added: "I'm just trying to put myself in your customers' position."
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The businessman continued: "It's just not going to happen... the type of people who, up until this point, have been paying a premium for this type of service, they're not going to suddenly drop this and go to Lidl and plan all their meals every week, it's not going to happen."
Gesturing to one of the meal kits, Touker responded: "But a lot of people, they will look at this and say, 'you can probably find that in a supermarket for £20'." Will added: "I don't think you're putting yourself into our consumer's shoes."
Touker hit back: "I am your consumer. I can afford this, but I also don't throw money away." BBC viewers were also unimpressed with Will's remarks about Lidl as they slammed the entrepreneur on social media.
On Twitter, Cheryl wrote: "I despise Lidl but I despise snobs even more. How dare you sneer at people that shop there." Dave replied: "Horrible, poor shaming people, hope their business goes bust".
Mac tweeted: "Stuck up vegan p****, what's wrong with Lidl?" and David posted: "Get the feeling he doesn't shop at Lidl often." Dan commented: "Aldi and Lidl have both won supermarket of the year within the last two years, maybe he should get his head from up his a****."
Another dragon, Steven Bartlett, ended up offering the couple the full £75,000 amount they wanted - but with a 7.5 percent share in the business. After talking the offer over, the couple accepted it, 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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