Tesco's Jamie Oliver Tweet Savagely Trolled - And Even Lidl Got Involved

Tesco announced today that it has partnered with a big celebrity name to 'create a range of delicious, healthier and affordable recipes'. Sounds lovely, right?

WRONG.

You can literally imagine the social media person proudly hitting 'send', before leaning back into their chair and cheerily dusting their hands for a good job well done.

"People are going to love this," they say with a smile, reaching for a celebratory Hobnob and a brew.

But wait, what's that? Oh, crap. Turns out people do NOT love this. Not one bit. Um...

The phones start ringing. Someone from finance runs in, asking what the hell they've done.

"I thought people liked Jamie Oliver?!" Social-Media-Person responds, referencing the 50-or-so meetings they've sat in with the smiley and enthusiastic comms team, where talk was nothing but positive.

That's right, Tesco has partnered with Jamie Oliver for a new campaign, which sees the TV star step up as an ambassador to help others 'make healthier choices more accessible and affordable'.

That sounds like a winner, no? Well, no, the internet has other ideas. In fact, the internet is positively fuming.

Others just took the chance to troll Jamie, with one person writing: "Every spittle helps."

Another referenced his war on turkey twizzlers AND the recent kerfuffle with jerk seasoning, tweeting: "Jerky Twizzlers anybody?"

Someone else simply tweeted the middle finger emoji. 128 times.

Lidl got involved, too:

Jamie has said the aim of the partnership is to help people cook from scratch more - something that he believes is the 'best way to look after your health'.

"Together, we want to empower Tesco customers to eat better food, and promote real change in the eating habits of the nation," he said.

"It's about embracing beautiful, fresh produce to ensure we get maximum goodness in every meal. We want to help you feed your family with good, wholesome meals, so you know exactly what's in the food that you're eating. I don't think anyone would argue with that."

He added: "Tackling childhood obesity is my major focus for the next 12 years. We know it's a big challenge, but there are some really exciting ideas developing about how to make our whole environment healthier - like stopping advertising junk food to kids, introducing price promotions for healthy ingredients (not just unhealthy food), and giving schools proper support to teach kids what healthy looks like.

"It's going to be an interesting time, but I'm up for the challenge!"

Let's hope Tesco's social media team are too. This could be a long day.

Topics: Food, UK News, SUgar tax, Jamie Oliver, UK, Tesco

Jess Hardiman

Jess is a journalist at LADbible who graduated from Manchester University with a degree in Film Studies, English Language and Linguistics - indecisiveness at its finest, right there. She also works for FOODbible and its sister page Seitanists, which are both a safe haven for her to channel a love for homemade pasta, fennel and everything else in between. You can contact Jess at [email protected].

@Jess_Hardiman