HelloFresh has been criticised over a Pride Month marketing post which referred to meal ingredients in a way some commentators said reduced gay people to crude sexual stereotypes.

The global meal kit company posted on Instagram: “We know eating isn’t always a top priority this month. We respect that. But for those of you who are… prepping… we have an extensive lineup of high-fibre recipes available. Happy Pride.”

The word “prepping” was interpreted by some social media users as a sexual reference linked to anal sex.

After a commenter suggested the promo code BOTTOMSUP, HelloFresh replied customers could use it for a Pride Month discount.

The X account Libs of TikTok, which has 4.7 million followers, urged its readers to cancel their HelloFresh subscriptions.

New Zealand political commentator Ani O’Brien criticised the campaign in a Facebook post.

“As a lesbian, I am so tired of this nonsense. I am tired of corporate Pride and activist Pride,” O’Brien said.

She said the same sex marriage movement was never about sex.

“It was about love, commitment, and the ability to build a life with the person you love. It was about family and equality before the law,” O’Brien said.

She said most gay people wanted to be accepted and left alone, rather than represented through crude corporate jokes.

“We don’t need multinational corporations making dirty jokes about us to feel ‘included’,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien said HelloFresh could have produced a more positive campaign.

“How hard would it have been to make a genuinely wholesome Pride advertisement? Two mums cooking dinner with their kids or two husbands hosting friends,” O’Brien said.

She said the campaign undermined years of work by gay people who wanted to be seen as neighbours, colleagues, parents and partners.

“It’s regressive and distasteful,” O’Brien said.

Twitter user @legaltweetz said the campaign reflected a movement that had lost its way.

“This is what happens when a movement loses all sense of boundaries and purpose. Every year the messaging becomes more bizarre, more sexualized, more grotesque, and more detached from ordinary people. Now we’re celebrating Pride with digestive humor about bottoming for anal sex from a meal-kit company. What a legacy,” @legaltweetz said.

HelloFresh is a German multinational headquartered in Berlin. It was founded in 2011 by Dominik Richter, Thomas Griesel and Jessica Nilsson, and is listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange. Richter is chief executive.

It operates across the United States, Canada, parts of Europe, Australia and New Zealand, with North America accounting for most of its revenue. Its brands include Green Chef, EveryPlate, Factor and Youfoodz.

HelloFresh trades in New Zealand through HelloFresh New Zealand Limited, which is based in Wellington and run as part of the company’s combined Australia and New Zealand operation. It delivers to most regions across both islands and competes with local rival My Food Bag.

The business has had a difficult run. Its trailing 12-month revenue was about US$7.5 billion as of March, but its share price has fallen sharply over the past two years after it cut profit forecasts and abandoned earlier growth targets.

HelloFresh has faced scrutiny before. In 2024, a United States Department of Labour investigation found migrant children had worked at one of its facilities.

The company said the workers were hired through a third-party staffing firm, Midway Staffing, ending that contract and cited a zero-tolerance child labour policy.

HelloFresh’s New Zealand office said it was unable to meet Chris Lynch Media’s deadline for comment.