{"id":19458,"date":"2017-11-21T17:00:28","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T17:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/?p=19458"},"modified":"2017-11-21T17:00:28","modified_gmt":"2017-11-21T17:00:28","slug":"asda-blasted-for-refusing-to-give-mince-pie-samples-without-id","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/asda-blasted-for-refusing-to-give-mince-pie-samples-without-id\/","title":{"rendered":"Asda blasted for refusing to give out mince pie samples without ID"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The pies contain a tiny amount of port and brandy.<\/p>\n<p>Asda has come under criticism for refusing to give a mince pie sample to a customer who was not able to present her ID to prove she was over 18 years of age.<\/p>\n<p>The supermarket has been giving out slices of its Extra Special Luxury all-butter mince pies for Christmas and is now demanding shoppers to prove their identity to sample their mince pies as they contain pork and brandy.<\/p>\n<p>Student Merryn Walker, 21, who was denied a sample because she had no ID at an Asda supermarket at Donnington.<\/p>\n<p>Walker said:&#8221; It&#8217;s crazy. You could probably eat a whole box and not be inebriated.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The mince pies are described as &#8220;generously filled with spiced vine fruits and a splash of rich ruby port and French brandy, all encased in crumbly shortcrust pastry.&#8221; They contain four percent brandy and 1.5 percent ruby port.<\/p>\n<p>However, although customers need ID to try samples of the most popular Christmas treats, they don&#8217;t need to show proof of age to buy them.<\/p>\n<p>An Asda spokesperson told The Independent: \u201cWe know our customers will love the fantastic festive food we have available this year, which is why we\u2019re sampling bite-sized portions of some of the tasty treats in the build-up to Christmas.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For obvious reasons products containing liquid alcohol are only offered to customers over the age of 18.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, mince pies are a family staple and would usually be made available to all \u2013 but, we would never criticise an individual for trying to do the right thing when presented with a customer who\u2019s lucky enough to look younger than their years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Words: Alexandra\u00a0Baneva| Subbed:<\/p>\n<div class=\"dnd-widget-wrapper context-sdl_editor_representation type-image\"><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The pies contain a tiny amount of port and brandy. Asda has come under criticism for refusing to give a mince pie sample to a customer who was not able to present her ID to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":19485,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,52,56],"tags":[217,390,588,969,1222,1332,1624,2340,2345,4187,4953,6014],"class_list":["post-19458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-featured","category-food","tag-217","tag-alcohol","tag-asda","tag-brandy","tag-celebration","tag-christmas","tag-criticism","tag-festive","tag-festiveseason","tag-mincepies","tag-port","tag-supermarket"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}