Have you had any giraffe bread? You may know it better by the name tiger bread, but in Sainsbury’s that will be a thing of the past, thanks to a three year old girl.
Lily wrote a letter in May 2011 to her local Sainsbury’s commercial property in London asking why the bread was called tiger bread and not giraffe bread. The letter stated: “Dear Sainsssssssssssssssssssbbbbbbbbbbbburyyys, why is tiger bread called tiger bread? It should be called giraffe bread. Love from Lily Robinson age 3 and 1/2”.
Many commercial property companies would have simply discarded the letter, but Chris King, the Customer Manager at the time, replied to Lily and included a £3 gift card for her to spend in store.
The letter stated: “Thanks so much for your letter, I think renaming tiger bread giraffe bread is a brilliant idea – it looks much more like the blotches on a giraffe than the stripes on a tiger, doesn’t it?
“It is called tiger bread because the first baker who made it a looong time ago thought it looked stripey like a tiger. Maybe they were a bit silly.”
He ended the letter with “Chris King (age 27 & 1/3).”
Lily’s mum Lucy posted both letters on her blog to share with friends and family, but didn’t anticipate that the letters would go viral, let alone that the commercial property chain would rename the product.
The company are trialling the renamed bread in the London store, but if it proves popular, they may rename it in all of their commercial properties nationwide.
“In response to overwhelming customer feedback that our tiger bread has more resemblance to a giraffe, from today we will be changing our tiger bread to giraffe bread and seeing how that goes,” a spokesperson for the company stated.
Chris King no longer works for the company, but has become an internet sensation for his letter. Chris, who has a Facebook fanpage with almost 4000 likes, describes his new found fame as “absolutely crazy but in the nicest possible way.”
Chris went onto say: “People have gotten in touch from all over the world to say how nice it was, it’s been overwhelmingly positive. I even got a handwritten thank you card from an anonymous lady in the States – and a couple of marriage proposals!
“It’s great to know that it’s put a smile on so many people’s faces, it was just a daft wee thing I did as I wanted to make sure this wee girl, who’d done brilliantly typing up her letter, got a nice reply.
“I’m now studying primary teaching, which is why I left, which usually makes people laugh if they know about the letter.”
Do you think Sainsbury’s should rename their bread permanently to giraffe bread?
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