What the ...!!!

KIds will love it. It would depend on whether they can badger their parents enough. A good ad campaign would work.

I seem to remember James in Series 5 (?) changed the Skull and Crossbones on his team's pirate parrot character (with spoons for hands) for this exact reason - he didn't want to encourage kids to eat things with skull and crossbones on it... I don't think he got enough credit for that one, it was a shrewd decision.

Yeah... the idea of going creepy was good, but the skull puts you off.

A kid won't badger their parents for a ready meal, no matter what it looks like. They badger their parents for sweets and shit.

They should have gone for a dark green, slime-type packaging and logo. Black and skull was just too much...

I have 2 kids who are obsessed with pirates and love everything with skull & crossbones on so if I saw it in a supermarket I'd buy it because I know my kids would love the packaging... However I don't give my kids ready meals so the food would go to waste.

I can't believe none of them thought it might be a bad move!

No store in the country would touch a food product with both deadly & a skull on it. It is a recognised symbol for Hazardous substances in fact it may even be against the law to have that symbol on a food product

To be fair Leah had been saying throughout that she didnt like the idea, although there wasn't much she could do about it while she was shoved in the kitchen

I'm pretty sure it isn't - not here in the UK, anyway.

It's NOT illegal, but the general point about it being confusing and off-putting remains valid.

When you say 'badger' their parents, do you mean like Ruth Badger? She was pretty good at getting people to buy things...

I didn't see the problem tbh, like anyone, children or otherwise, will mistake a ready meal for bleach.

You seriously do not se a problem with putting the internationally recognised symbol for dangerous and hazardous substance on a food item?


I would think again if I were you

And what about all those chocolates at Halloween with skulls all over them? I don't think it is as bigger problem as you make out.

Every year we get lots of ghoulish stuff in the shops. With hindsight I would have maybe used something like Dracula or a Frankenstein's monster image. Also they could have mentioned the popularity of horrible histories. Jordan's pitch showed that with the correct marketing strategy it would work.

I also think the Geography angle could have been good too. But mixing Thai and Caribbean food is just so wrong.

Going for grim themed package was good idea , but skull, bones and "deadly" in name - too much. They lost.

Most ready meals are full of sugar, fat and salt, so pretty much poisonous anyway.

clearly Miles doesnt ever shop much,, i cant believe he is a parent and thought the skull thing was appropriate.

For God's sake, it was a cartoon skull. The damn thing even had a little smile.

All skulls smile!

I'm slightly torn on this one.

Whilst I agree that a skull wasn't exactly the right choice for a logo, just because it's the widely accepted danger/ poison logo, the overall idea wasn't as bad as many seem to be making out.

Over the years, many foodstuffs aimed at children have a similar kind of macabre theme and have been successful- Heinz did a load of different spaghetti shases- ghosts and ghouls for example and many confectioners have had ,fangs, teeth, blood etc for sweets. Also how many kids character brands are supernatural or horror based- Caspar the Friendly ghost anyone?

Ok not the best example but you get the gist. IMO people are going over the top with the stance against the deadly/ horror type theme.

I appreciate that you have to be extra careful with food, but in theory this could have worked and caught on if they had marketed the product slightly differently. I liked the 'boring bit for parents' blurb they put on the packaging and I think that if they had focused more on this to the adults/ buyers, and chosen a different logo then this may well have won the task.

One thing that they pointed out on You're Fired! is that they actually put a white skull on top of a black one. If they'd just had the black one as background, it would have been much better.

No need to think again, the poison symbol also has cross bones and usually states the word "poison" clearly, all on a brightly coloured background.

I am sure that if they customized the skull more, making it look like some kind of mascot it would've been better. A butler with skull instead of a head or whatever.