If life gives you lemons, make lemonade, goes the saying. Presumably in this bizarre case Iceland own-brand lemonade.
When Leeds-based Indian street food restaurant Bundobust, which also operates branches in Liverpool and Manchester, including its flagship venue with in-house brewery on Oxford Street, made a cheeky Instagram post advertising its ‘Spiceland Party Buffet,’ it was presumably intended simply as a bit of fun and good festive use of a pun.
The supermarket the pun referenced disagreed, however, and Bundobust promptly received a cease and desist order from Iceland’s lawyers over its riffing on the theme of the supermarket’s famed frozen party platters.
Initially, the curry maestros were understandably surprised: “Oh wow! A Christmas card from our friends at Icela- oh,” they wrote.
They kept their pun game strong too, adding: “‘Tis the cease-on.”
Before long the cogs were turning at Bundobust’s social media team, however, and the purveyor of some of the finest paneer tikka on either side of the Pennines spotted a way to make the most of Iceland’s frosty reception to its publicity efforts – until December 23, customers are invited to visit Bundobust, and bring an Iceland voucher worth at least £20 with them.
The vouchers will be donated to the Trussell Club foodbanks, while the customers will receive a voucher for a £35 combo (definitely not a ‘Spiceland Party Buffet’) or vegan combo for two which can be used anytime in January or February:
“We’ll be honest, we weren’t expecting our daft Iceland/Spiceland saga to resonate with everybody so much. You lot must have been hitting the mulled wine too hard too early,” Bundo’s team wrote on Insta.
“We’ll take the likes, obviously – keep them coming – but we thought we’d see if we could take everybody’s festive spirit and manifest it into something positive in aid of a good cause (our social media person’s ego is NOT a good cause)
“SO! What we came up with is this: the Spiceland Swap Shop.
– When you come and eat at Bundo, bring us a £20 Iceland voucher (or more if you’re feeling charitable)
– We’ll give you a voucher for a free Combo for 2, redeemable in January or February
– All the Iceland vouchers you bring in will be donated to local food banks.
You get a little treat in January, and you get to do your bit to combat food poverty at the same time. Win win!”
Bravo, Bundobust’s social media team, and Bah, humbug Iceland’s legal team…
