diff --git a/helpers/make-linux-meta-hwe b/helpers/make-linux-meta-hwe
index 63a2852110c794d2ceb5018a5dd068db57724dd4..3aeefb4fa604c90b59e48f2580d16531d6dce6fe 100644
--- a/helpers/make-linux-meta-hwe
+++ b/helpers/make-linux-meta-hwe
@@ -28,6 +28,8 @@ sed 's/Ubuntu/upstream/' -i debian/control
 sed 's/Linux/Linux-libre/g' -i debian/control ./debian/control.d/generic debian/control.d/lowlatency
 sed '/Package.*gkeop.*/,/^$/d' -i debian/control
 
+echo '-18.04' > debian/variants
+
 cat << EOF >> debian/control
 
 Package: linux-source-hwe