Lidl faces €200,000 bill as Twitter dinner for the poor offer goes viral
Retailer Lidl is facing a €200,000 bill after an offer for five Christmas dinners for the poor for those who tweeted using a certain hashtag went viral.
The €20 dinner-packs offered in Belgium consisted of tomato soup, chicken vol-au-vents with chips, an ice-cream cake and chocolates, with Lidl expecting to send out 1000 of these to food banks in total.
However, local newspapers wrote about the campaign, making the hashtag #luxevooriedereen, Dutch for "luxury for everyone", known to the public and leading to over 1,500 tweets within the first day of the offer; meaning Lidl had to provide 7,500 dinners.
A spokesperson told Reuters: "We've learnt quite a few lessons over the past 48 hours, to say the least.”
Lidl, who has now upped its offer to 10,000 dinners, has not decided if it will repeat the exercise next year.