Pret A Manger’s Health & Safety Hypocrisy

Desperate times, desperate measures.

Facebook post, quote: “… we’re unable to donate hot food … due to its limited shelf-life.”

And since over a year Pret’s been giving hot food leftover away via food donation apps, especially after I keep informing people on social media about the immense daily food waste in plastic to landfill via Pret A Manger Food Waste.

To safe face after all the criticism of food waste that customers in the UK, USA etc. have made photos of, Pret then started to even give hot food away that previously was STRICTLY NOT allowed to be given out. I was a Team Leader at Pret and got in trouble by management when I gave hot food to charity. I didn’t know at the time that we weren’t allowed, as I was trained on this.

Of course I stopped giving hot food and only gave to the charity guys who picked up food with the instruction to please consume the hot food immediately and not keep it over night.

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So now, what does Pret do to safe face with all the criticism, they give end of 2 hour shelf life expired hot food away. Bur now donations have turned into sales, they now can be PURCHASED via food saving apps! People now have to PAY for hot food that became cold, has been sitting on the hot shelf for at least 2 hours, probably re-heated at least 2 times which I explain in detail here: Request to Remove a Tweet. Suddenly it’s not a health and safety issue anymore.

And to make it worse, people now have to PAY for expired hot food that turned cold, may have been reheated already 2 – 3 times, which people then heat up AGAIN at home! Loss of profit due to the pandemic of course eliminates any health and safety issues *irony off*!

The marking on the porridge lid means the porridge has to be wasted at that time of that day. This porridge may be from yesterday or at least from HOURS after it was already on the hot shelf for 1.5 – 2 hours.

The marking on this porridge (also soup) lid means the item has to be WASTED at 10 am (if a shop is open late, a soup then may be good until 10 PM). The lids and stickers in Pret are like clocks. The large lines are full hours, the shorter lines are half after the hour. In this case (photo) it means that the Hot Chef put out the porridge at 8am in the morning, having to mark it to 10am.

At 10am this item has to be put in the bin OR immediately consumed. This is mainly for quality purpose. The longer a porridge or soup sits on the hot shelf, the more the quality suffers as well as the item cooking down.

It doesn’t mean it becomes “off” per se, just the quality isn’t good anymore. BUT, when taking the soup outside, keeping it in your bag for another few hours, the temperature fluctuation could created problems. PLUS, as I write extensively that hot porridge and soups have already been heated at least TWICE (1. in the factory cooking, then 2. in the shops water-baths/microwaves).

Pret via TooGoodToGo app now fool customers by saying, you can still eat it (after paying less money), but it has to be consumed within 2 hours.

Well, hold on a minute Pret! Didn’t you say for DECADES, that hot food HAS TO be wasted AFTER the 2 hours it has been sitting on the hot shelf??? We weren’t even allowed to give it for FREE to charity! I myself got REPRIMANDED by management when I gave hot food to a homeless person after 2 hour shelf-life!

But now you just add an additional 2 hours AFTER the 2 hour shelf life? Oh, I see, you need money! Ah, I get it! Makes sense! Now health and safety doesn’t count anymore. I see, I see! 😉

Pret policy as stated above was to WASTE all hot food after 1.5 or 2 hours on the shelf, depending on the product. Some products are 1.5 hours, other items have 2 hour hot-shelf life. This is not due to expiration but due to quality.

So, since profit losses and criticism of too much food waste, Pret suddenly changes its policy and it’s supposed to be safe now?

Advertisement on Pret shops ONLY show 1. TooGoodToGo WITHOUT mentioning that it will COST money to buy expired food and 2. the Olio app is NOT mentioned because Olio doesn’t have a deal with Pret to SELL food. Via the Olio app the food is FREE!

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When I called Pret and TooGoodToGo_UK out on SELLING hot (cooled down) expired food that Pret wouldn’t even give for free before, I got blocked:

Early last year before it got clear how the pandemic would affect worldwide economies, a customer witnessed soups being thrown in the bin because it expired according to (then) Pret policy. The customer just purchased a soup and seeing that it’s basically becoming zero value within minutes, asked for her money back. Pret responded by asking which Bath shop it was, because the stressed out staff member threw the soups out IN FRONT of customers. Pret will have instructed staff to waste behind closed doors, not on the shop floor.

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More on Pret’s health and safety issues, please see the following links:

Pret A Manger Food is NOT Fresh

Pret Staff Tested Positive for Covid (pre-vax) and how expiry dates are “stretched”, food kept for several days and soup is now frozen to safe money on waste.

Rat A Manger & Pret A Mice – understaffed shops, overworked staff lead to lack of hygiene. Rat droppings, flied, hair, plastic, critters etc. in food.

UPDATE:

Many customer complaints on social media, not just Twitter, that they paid for the expired food, but don’t get it: