I think it’s quite unwarranted and very judgemental. I’m myself a non native English speaker and come from a country where the majority aren’t a native speaker.

To clarify, the stereotypical person who'd be likely to be selling saffron is likely a trader/merchant who's been at it for decades. Such people are excellent at business but often struggle with technology (no offense meant, you don't need to be good at tech to be a good/nice person). I wouldn't except this kind of person to know what a # does for headings.

(It's possible they asked some younger kid/nephew for help - again speaking from experience as I've seen this trend a lot as an Asian myself - and younger gens would likely know how to use a hashtag/pound, but younger gens are generally quite decent with English too. Again, this is in general - of course there are exceptions which this article appears to be.)