Giraffe bread hits the shelves! Sainsbury's officially changes
name of tiger variety after three-year-old's letter goes
viral
They say the customer is always right.
But not many can claim to being so right they forced a
supermarket to change one of its products.
Little Lily Robinson can, however, after the
three-year-old got Sainsbury's to rename its tiger bread after
writing a letter saying it looked more like the markings of a
giraffe.
Consumer power: Loaves of the newly-named giraffe bread
went on sale in Sainsbury's yesterday
Lily, who gave her age as '3½',
fired off her comments to the company last May suggesting the name
be altered.
She received a reply
two weeks later from customer manager Chris King who wrote: ‘I
think renaming tiger bread giraffe bread is a brilliant
idea.
‘It looks much more like the
blotches on a giraffe than the stripes on a tiger, doesn’t
it?’
Misnomer moan: Lily Robinson's letter to Sainsbury's
asking why tiger bread wasn't called giraffe bread
Understanding: This witty and friendly reply from
Customer Manager Chris King won him a lot of praise
Viral: Lily's mother posted her daughter's letter and
the response on this Facebook campaign page which went on to get
more than 140,000 'likes'
He went on to explain that the bread had got its name
because the first baker who made it a ‘looong time ago thought it
looked stripey like a tiger.’
'Maybe they were a bit silly,’ he added before signing off
with his age ’27 1/3’, just as Lily did.
The girl’s letter and the supermarket’s reply has now gone
viral eight months later with over 150,000 ‘likes’ on Facebook
after her mother posted them online.
Sainsbury’s last night said it had given in to popular
demand and started selling the new loaves from yesterday
What do you think? A look at these images makes it hard
to disagree with Lily
A spokesman said: ‘In response to overwhelming customer
feedback that our tiger bread has more resemblance to a giraffe,
from today we will be changing our tiger bread to giraffe bread and
seeing how that goes.’
The supermarket said that Mr King, who has been widely
praised by Twitter and Facebook users for his impressive reply, has
left the company and is training as a primary school
teacher.
Tiger bread is typically made by brushing a rice paste
onto the surface of a bloomer loaf prior to baking, with the
pattern forming as the paste dries and cracks.