Moncton — With Tide pods all the craze these days, some parents are finding it difficult to fit the new treat into their weekly grocery budget and have resorted to supplementing kids’ lunches with generic laundry pods in an effort to save a few bucks.

Those children whose parents have spoiled them with the authentic Tide pods haven’t been overly accepting or kind to those munching on store brand pods, however, and there have been multiple cases of bullying in Moncton area schools.

“I’ve always used the Kirkland brand for my clothes,” explained a regretful Robert Foster. “They’re like 50 cents cheaper per pod and they get my clothes just as clean as Tide does so I figured they’d probably taste the same — must be Gain that makes the difference.”

Foster told The Manatee that his two kids, who are in grades 3 and 6, have both been victims of bullying because of the generic pods that he sent in their lunches last week.

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” Foster continued. “I just kept hearing about all these kids eating Tide pods and it was trending on Facebook and all over the news — I didn’t want my kids to be the only weirdos who weren’t cool enough to have pods in their lunch so I threw a couple in.”

What happened next, Foster recalled, was heartbreaking: his children came home crying about other kids mocking them. Foster phoned the school’s principal and quickly learned that his kids were not the only ones being bullied.

“There are lots of naïve parents who are sending their children with no-name pods,” revealed principal Margaret Wilson. “What the parents don’t realize is that it’s not just about the contents of the laundry pods, it’s also about the look. The Kirkland ones, for instance, look boring and almost dangerous to eat. But the Tide ones? They look delicious.”

Wilson said that to put a stop to the bullying, she has initiated a rule allowing only authentic Tide pods in lunches moving forward. When asked why not simply abolish all laundry pods from lunches, Wilson replied by saying that that would be “to unfair to the kids whose parents love them.”