Lidl airbrushes crosses on church from its packaging
LIDL has been accused of ‘cultural vandalism’ after it removed crosses from its packaging for fear of offending non-Christian shoppers.
The budget supermarket chain’s range of Greek food carries an image of the bluedomed Anastasis Church on Santorini.
However, the picture on the packaging has been edited to remove the small Christian crosses that decorate the tops of the domes and surrounding buildings.
Stephen Green, director of campaign group Christian Voice, said: ‘This is cultural vandalism.
‘The airbrushing of a church is the sort of rubbish you would expect from a government department, not a retailer whose job it is to sell products. It is crazy they would want to offend half their customer base.’
Lidl’s Facebook page has been swamped with similar complaints that it is discriminating against Christian shoppers.
The edited picture appears on new packaging for Lidl’s ‘Eridanous’ range of Greek delicacies such as olive oil, moussaka, yogurt and gyros.
The row started in Belgium and Germany. The same products with the edited image are available in the chain’s UK stores. A Lidl spokesman told Belgian TV station RTL: ‘We are avoiding the use of religious symbols because we do not wish to exclude any religious beliefs. We respect diversity and this explains the design of this packaging.’
A spokesman for Lidl UK said: ‘We are extremely sorry for any offence caused by the most recent artwork and would like to reassure our customers that this is not an intentional statement.’ He added that the reaction would be taken into consideration over future packaging.