Following a controversy over their drinks bottles featuring 'Nazi' swastikas on them, Old Street Tube station café Nincomsoup revealed the whole thing was a publicity stunt. A female customer was left appalled with an offensive image on their almond milk and peanut butter drinks on sale. When she confronted the store manager, he responded by saying it was "an inverted swastika, a Hindu symbol of health and prosperity."
While the brand removed the products off the shelves, fired the "rogue employee" responsible and issued an apology on its website, café founder Ben Page-Phillips later said the whole thing was a publicity stunt. In a recent statement, he said, "Incredulously, it has been suggested by some, that the Nincomsoup management team sat down in our marketing department, and carefully orchestrated this whole affair as some big publicity stunt. Apparently, we discussed label design, ordered lavels from the printers, manufactured the drink, stocked the shelves and waited for the hate campaign to start." He added, "There is no management team. There is no marketing department, and it should be evident from this whole fiasco that we don't have a social media team either. It's just me. I have an amazing dedicated team of 8 people who make the soups, juices, coffee and baked goods."
The unidentified female customer involved, said she was almost in tears as it showed her that "anti-Semitism and fascism is still utterly present." Speaking with the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism group, she said when she confronted the manager about the name of the drink, Nutzy, he said it was a "play on the 'having the nuts' meaning 'having the courage' and was a pun on the drink containing nuts." She said, "I responded that I lost my family to the Nazi regime and that despite the Hindu use of the symbol, this along with the name of the drink was extremely offensive. He said that London is a free city."
Page-Phillips said, "I cannot tell you what was going through his(employee) mind when he created the label. Without doubt it was a gross misjudgement of epic proportions, but I did get to know him well enough to be sure that he does not have a single ounce of malicious intent towards anyone." the Campaign Against Antisemitism sent volunteers two days after the incident, and found the drinks were back in stock but the image was replaced with another of the Pope waving.
