This cafe ACTUALLY sold a smoothie called ‘Nutzy’ with a swastika on it…
A smoothie called “Nutzy” was sold in a London cafe with a swastika on it, the Campaign Against Antisemitism has said.
A Jewish member of the public flagged it up to the charity after seeing the drink in NinComSoup in Old Street and confronting the manager over it.
.@nincomsoupLDN Just one employee was able to get that product with swastika to the store shelves whilst no one else spoke up? A metaphor. pic.twitter.com/Ba5jQnZFsM
— スコット (@y2k7s) November 27, 2016
“He explained that it was an inverted swastika which was a Hindu symbol of health and prosperity, which is indeed right but the swastika was not inverted, and the Hindu sign includes dots within the symbol,” she told the CAA, according to a post on their website.
“When I asked about the name of the drink, he said it was a play on ‘having the nuts’, meaning ‘having the courage’ and was a pun as the drink contains nuts. I told him how offensive that was for certain people. He asked why I would find that so offensive, to which I responded that I lost my family to the Nazi regime and that despite the Hindu use of the symbol, this along with the name of the drink was extremely offensive. He said that London is a free city.
“I left the shop almost in tears and shivering as it proved to me how much antisemitism and fascism is still utterly present. That man had no shame whatsoever to tell me that I should not be offended by what I saw when the use of the swastika and the name of that drink is clearly not a coincidence.”
@nincomsoupLDN @LibyaLiberty I’ll NEVER go into your shop again. More then one person must have seen this product. The manager?
— Gareth Munden (@GarethMunden) November 27, 2016
The CAA later found that the “Nutzy” was still in stock but “the swastika had bizarrely been replaced with an image of the Pope waving”.
The CAA said: “It beggars belief that this shop created a Nazi-branded drink by unwitting coincidence.”
Mockery of the Holocaust isn’t a criminal offence, so the organisation resorted to contacting the shop’s landlord, Transport for London and the media.
The drink has since been removed from sale, and the company’s founder Ben Page-Phillips has issued an apology on their website.
Nincomsoup rogue employee dismissed full apology and statement: https://t.co/7JiByaUMLE
— Nincomsoup LDN (@nincomsoupLDN) November 27, 2016
“Sadly, an employee deemed it appropriate to put a Swastika on a smoothie named The Nutzy,” he wrote.
“This was unsanctioned and the bottles were removed immediately upon being alerted by our shop manager. Needless to say the rogue employee has been dismissed. This was incomprehensible, extremely insensitive and upsetting to all of us. We unreservedly apologise.”
