Shoppers have blasted New Covent Garden after the soup maker announced that nobody had claimed the top prize in its ‘Win a Farm’ competition.

More than a quarter of a million people took part in the promotion, which offered a top prize of £500,000 for one lucky soup fan to invest in their own rural business.

However, nobody entered the on-pack promotional code required to claim the prize. Shoppers have since taken to Facebook to slam the company for not giving the prize to one of the other entrants.

In response, New Covent Garden posted on its Facebook page: “Just wanted to reassure you all that we are listening to your feedback. We appreciate that there’s disappointment the farm wasn’t won, we are disappointed too.

“Every entry to the competition had an equal chance of winning the top prize but unfortunately the winning code wasn’t entered. There were over 250,000 entries to the competition, but not every pack was entered. If all the packs had been entered, someone would definitely have won.

“We’re taking everyone’s comments on this very seriously, and will be using them when we look at future promotions.”

New Covent Garden was taken over last year by US food group Hain Celestial.