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Coles accused of ‘making money from cancer’

Supermarket giant Coles is facing allegations that it is profiting from a campaign to raise money to fight cancer.

Coles has been selling bunches of flowers for $6 to raise money for Cancer Council, and only donating $1 towards the charity, a customer has claimed on the brand’s Facebook page.

The customer, AJ Tennant, a copywriter at Traffik Marketing, called the promotion “a quick grab for cash piggy backing on a worthy cause.”

He has demanded that the supermarket gives all of the proceedings from its Daffodil Day campaign to fight the disease.

Coles responded with the following a few hours after Tennant’s original post:

A Coles spokesman claimed that Cancer Council has said that the charity “could not run their helpline without the funds raised at Coles”.

The spokesman told Mumbrella in a statement:

All of the profits from our Daffodil Day shopping bag and the sales of Cancer Council merchandise such as pens and pins goes directly to the Cancer Council. The $1 per bunch donation through the sale of fresh daffodils is an additional fundraiser introduced to an existing product line previously sold in our stores and until recently not linked to any charity. We are proud of the efforts of our team and our customers in supporting cancer sufferers and their families. Thanks to their enthusiasm and generosity Coles is the biggest corporate supporter of the Cancer Council.

At the time of writing, the post had been ‘liked’ by more than 800 people and had drawn 63 comments.

Coles has not contributed further to the comment thread at the time of writing.

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