Hell Pizza have taken it upon themselves to decide whether or not you are allowed to eat meat. Without disclosing the true nature of their product, Hell Pizza included fake, plant based meat on their burger pizzas. Most people probably thought they were eating meat. Turns out they weren’t.
Hell Pizza denies misleading customers by covertly serving fake meat, despite a lawyer’s warning the company may have breached the Fair Trading Act.
Thousands of Kiwis unwittingly sampled Beyond Meat after Hell quietly added the product to its menu.
If a customer thinks they are eating meat and they are not, then the franchise has deliberately misled its customers. Those paying for the privilege of eating their pizzas do have the right to know what they are eating, and to expect a pizza with ‘meat’ on it, to include… meat.
If it were me, I would have been absolutely furious to have been duped like that.
The New Zealand-owned chain launched its burger pizza last Friday, with ingredients including “medium-rare burger patty”.
Hell says that they never said it included meat… but here’s the thing. Unless you are told otherwise, burgers include meat. Those that don’t are clearly defined, usually as ‘veggie burgers’. There is nothing wrong with a veggie burger, but there is something very wrong about a company letting you think you are eating meat when in fact, you are not.
After selling thousands of the pizzas to customers around the country, Hell revealed on Wednesday the patties were a plant-based creation from US company Beyond Meat.
Marketing lawyer Rae Nield said there was a high risk Hell was in breach of the Act, which protected consumers from being misled.
“What does a reasonable consumer expect if it says “burger” and there’s no qualifier – it doesn’t say “veggie” or “meat-free”. A reasonable consumer is going to think that means meat.”
Absolutely, and I guarantee that most customers thought exactly that – that they were eating meat. Hell misled their customers all right.
Why the hell did Hell do this? Well, waddaya know!
Cumming said the company had wanted to introduce customers to alternative proteins in an unexpected way and had expected mixed feedback.
“We care about the planet and want to start a conversation and raise awareness about sustainable food choices.
So they are climate Nazis. They think we should all be eating plants, and they have the right to tell us what to do, or even to make us do it. Hey, that is fine, (well maybe… or maybe not) but tell us what we are eating. It is my choice. If I want to eat meat, I will. If I want to eat plant based produce, I will; but I’m damned if I am going to be force fed anything and be lied to about it at the same time… and pay for the privilege.
“A lot of people are instantly put off by the idea of fake meats, so we made the call to not reveal its meat-free origins to [people] eating it because we were so confident they’d enjoy these patties,” he said.
A lot of people are put off fake meat for good reason. I have vegan friends who think we should also be vegan. They seem to think that, if they expose us sufficiently to their way of life, we will soon see the light. They won’t. I will forever remain on the dark side. Their food is disgusting.
There is another problem, and deliberately withholding the truth about what people were eating could well have caused some people with allergies to expose themselves to serious danger. Hell should know better.
‘Peas are legumes. People with severe allergies to legumes such as peanuts should be cautious when introducing a pea protein into their diet because of the possibility of a pea allergy…’ But if you think you are eating meat, you probably don’t worry, and you quite possibly do not bother to check the ingredient list. You already know whether or not you can eat meat. That is potentially dangerous.
Demand for meat-free options was increasing and as well as almost selling out of its limited supply of Beyond Meat, Hell had sold 35,000 vegan pizzas so far this year, Cumming said.
“With more pressure on the planet’s resources, we need to think about alternative food options.
Stuff.
I sincerely hope that Hell get into a hell of a lot of trouble for this, because, whether they admit it or not, they were deliberately misleading their clients. At the very least, they have issues with the Fair Trading Act. For me, this is it. I don’t eat a lot of pizza, but when I did, it was always Hell Pizza. Never again. I like to know what I am eating, I hate being duped, and above all, no one has the right to make a decision about my food on my behalf.
It is great to know I am never going to Hell... never again anyway.
