Ed Sheeran surprised fans at a supermarket outside of London on Tuesday, where he dished out pizza and signed his autograph for fans – in hot sauce.
Sheeran announced the event, which was being held to promote his hot sauce line, “Tingly Ted’s,” on his Instagram story.
Videos posted to social media show fans lined up in a parking lot outside a Sainsbury’s grocery store in St. Albans, a commuter town north of London.
Some fans said they had no idea Sheeran would be there. “Only popped into @Sainsburys for some milk!” wrote one on social media. “Random Tuesday at Sainsburys casually doing the food shop and only bump into @teddysphotos,” wrote another.
“We were delighted that Ed Sheeran made a surprise visit to our store today to show off his Tingly Ted’s hot sauces, it certainly gave our customers shivers!” Satwinder Hayre, the store manager, told PA Media.
The stunt was meant to show that Sheeran’s sauce “can work on anything,” according to a video posted by Tingly Ted’s on Instagram.
Sheeran signed his autograph for fans using the sauce. Among the items signed were a block of cheese, a melon, and a vinyl of his album “X.”
According to PA Media, some items soon popped up on online auction websites, with one eBay seller offering to preserve a hot sauce-signed kitchen roll in resin.
A “lifelong ketchup and hot sauce obsessive,” according to the Tingly Ted’s website, Sheeran has the Heinz tomato ketchup label tattooed on his arm. He created the hot sauce to realize his dream of making “the ketchup of hot sauces,” it said.
Tingly Ted’s is far from the first celebrity foray into the food and drink business. Last year, Kim Kardashian’s private equity firm invested in truffle-infused sauces. Blake Lively has a line of non-alcoholic mixers, Tom Hanks sells ‘Hanx’ coffee, and Kylie Jenner launched canned vodka sodas earlier this year.
