An Australian tourist has been forced to 'apologise' after a video of her choosing a selection of odd items for a £3.40 Tesco meal deal went viral. Katie Treasure, 23, sparked a massive backlash online after filming herself excitedly making her first ever meal deal selection in the UK.
The video showed Katie, who says meal deals are not offered in her native country, bemused by the vast array of food and drink items on offer. But her final choice of lemon-flavoured water, a duck wrap and eggs from the shelves of a Tesco unleashed a torrent of criticism on TikTok.
One commented: "All the hype for the meal deal to get water and eggs, you need to get the expensive smoothies to make it worth it." Another said: "That is a rogue meal deal selection."
The comments kept rolling in and it got so bad that Katie had to issue an apology in her following video. Katie, originally from Sydney, works as an English Language Assitant in a school in Valencia, Spain.
She was visiting the UK as she was spending time with her boyfriend's family over Christmas. She explained: "I was going round the corner to the local Tesco to pick up a meal deal for my boyfriend and I for a quick lunch.
"I thought I would film the experience as my TikTok page is all about the new experiences I have while traveling abroad. I'd never tried a meal deal prior to this but I had heard lots great things about them from my British friends so I was keen to give them a go.
"I filmed exploring the selection of options they had in the supermarket, and my experience discovering out how it all worked. Then finally at the end, I showed the choice I made for myself!"
According to Katie, meal deals like this don't exist in Australia and anything similar is few and far between. I was excited to try it because I had heard a lot about them from my friends who are from the UK, and my boyfriend who lives in the UK too." She said.
The video she posted on TikTok was viewed over 1,000,000 times, getting nearly 90,000 likes and hundreds of comments. I did not expect the video to pick up so much traction, for me, it was just another novel experience traveling.
"But I realized after posting it that meal deals clearly are a bit of a unique hallmark of British culture and that people have some strong opinions about how it should and shouldn't be done. In fairness, when I got home my boyfriend did point out that eggs were a bit of a weird choice, but I didn't expect it to blow up quite as it did."
After posting a follow-up video of herself issuing an apology to those who took her meal deal choices quite seriously, she went back to the same shop to "redeem herself" and get a proper selection. I didn't realize my choices would elicit such strong reactions from people.
"I also didn't realize there was a bit of a formula to finessing the meal deal - ie. trying to purchase the most expensive items. So I felt if my intention was to properly get the experience of trying a British meal deal, I should likely do it their way."
Unfortunately, Katie's meal deal adventures will have to be put on hold for the foreseeable future as she has now returned to Spain. But to appease the UK TikTok community, she made sure to get a meal deal while in the airport.
"I started my meal deal journey right at the end of my trip to the UK. However, I did manage to purchase one at Boots at the airport right before getting on my plane back to Spain.
"I also have plans to be back in England later this year, and will for sure be trying more meal deal combinations."
