Bacon naan-gate: Marks & Spencer accused of profiting from Dishoom's signature dish
Taking to Twitter, the restaurant group tweeted a link to M&S’ Instagram page that featured a video of M&S chef Chris Barber creating what was described as his recipe for the dish made using naan bread, eggs and chilli jam.
“Dearest friends, it may not have escaped some people’s notice that a rather famous retailer has, in the past days, been peddling the recipe for a dish that is especially close to our hearts,” Dishoom wrote.
The supermarket group has since credited Dishoom with the recipe, but the restaurant group says that the recipe is now being used, without any credit, across numerous paid advertising platforms. “For all our flippancy, in honesty, it hurts,” it tweeted.
"After a year in which our cafés have been mostly closed, a year when we’ve spent many months (and countless sleepless nights) perfecting our first-ever meal kit to be able to bring this much-loved dish to the doors of patrons nationwide, it hurts all the more.
“There are many ways to entice people to visit a store. To attempt to profit off a dish that has become synonymous with a restaurant (which, like so many others, is doing everything in its power to stay afloat, to rebuild, and to protect over 950 jobs), seems to me pretty cheeky.”
The restaurant group has called on M&S to follow its own charitable approach, where for every breakfast it serves, whether in its restaurants or as a meal kit – where people can produce the bacon and egg naan roll at home - it donates a meal to charity Magic Breakfast.
“If that isn’t quite your style, might we suggest you donate a small percentage of your advertising budget to our good friends Magic Breakfast, who provide nutritious free meals to school children across the UK,” it added.
To date, Dishoom has incredibly raised more than 10 million meals for its charity partners.
The restaurant group has also pointed out that the official recipe for the bacon and egg naan roll be found in the Dishoom cookery book.
In April, the supermarket started legal proceedings against rival chain Aldi saying that its Cuthbert the Caterpillar cake infringed upon the trademarks of its Colin the Caterpillar cake.
