The firm insisted it was “disappointed” that no one won the £500,000 winning prize and revealed that if the correct competition procedures had been followed, the winning prize could have been claimed.
Nigel Parrott, group marketing director at New Covent Garden Soup Co. said: “We appreciate that people are disappointed that the ‘win a farm’ prize wasn’t won. We are just as disappointed and we take the feelings and comments of our customers very seriously.
Prize was not claimed
“Our consumers were getting a free entry via an on-pack code with every carton of soup they bought, but unfortunately the winning code was not entered into the website, so the prize was not claimed. Had all packs been entered, someone would definitely have won.”
Parrot also said that the firm would now review how its future promotions should be run and would take these comments into consideration.
The news enraged some of the 260,000 hopefuls who entered the competition. Many of whom contacted the firm’s Facebook page to vent their frustrations. Some also claimed that they were not able to enter the necessary code while the competition was still active.
One angry entrant wrote: “So, just what was the winning code? I tried to enter the code from one box four times and it was refused when the competition was still on. I sent a letter with a photocopy to both addresses, but got no reply whatsoever...what are we to think?”
Tried to enter
Another hopeful also wrote:Tried to enter your competition to ‘Win a Farm’. But your website will not recognise any codes from the packets. Bit of a con really.”
However, a spokeswoman for Hain Daniels told FoodManufacture.co.uk that every contestant that entered the competition had a fair chance of winning.
She said: “I can clarify that every entry to the competition had an equal chance of winning the grand prize, but unfortunately the winning code was not entered this time.”
The competition rules were also backed by the Institute of Promotional Marketing (IPM), which declared the competition fair and legal.
Annie Swift, chief executive of the Institute of Promotional Marketing comments: “The IPM looked at this promotion before it went live, as we do with thousands of these promotions every year; there was nothing wrong with the terms and conditions. It was legal and it followed the CAP Code, the rules which cover promotions like this.”