Iceland Foods has thanked the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lee Anderson for lashing out at a move to place ticks on some of its hot-cross buns, claiming the criticisms boosted sales.
Conservative Rees-Mogg and Reform UK’s Anderson were among politicians to slate the supermarket over the move, which Iceland chair Richard Walker attributed to soaring sales of traditional buns on Thursday.
“Big shout out to trendsetters Rees-Mogg and 30p Lee for bigging up Iceland’s hot ‘tick’ buns,” he said on social media on Friday.
“They weren’t for real btw lads - and sales of our devout and trad hot cross buns were up 134% yesterday.”
Despite the comments, Iceland had trialled the buns in a number of its stores this week, which replaced the cross depicting Jesus’ crucifixion with a tick.
Anderson had described the move as “ridiculous namby-pamby virtual-signalling”, while Rees-Mogg questioned who would buy such a product.
Iceland has continued to stock traditional hot cross buns though, with development head David Lennox commenting it would be “interesting to see if the British public take a liking to buttering their ticked buns”.
“However, we’d of course never get rid of the original and much-loved Easter staple,” he said.
He had argued some wanted to do away with the religious symbol on the buns, adding Iceland was testing alternatives "in true British fashion".
Christian groups argued that the true message of Easter remained the same, regardless of such squabbles surrounding how shops presented festive products.
“As others have said, Christians will continue to proclaim this marvellous good news regardless of what Iceland puts on its buns,” Simon Calvert, deputy director of The Christian Institute, said.
“My advice is: This Easter Sunday, instead of buying hot cross buns, go to church.”