Header picture, screenshot from YouTube.
Upfront, I’ve sent this blog post to Doughboys podcast’s email address and Libby Watson’s email address and Charlie McDonnell’s email address. None of them responded and most likely won’t respond.
I want to post some thoughts on an episode of an American food chain podcast about Pret called Doughboys.
Firstly, I’m not a professional writer, you will find mistakes here as well as English not being my mother-tongue. I am neither paid nor do I monetize my work except for a PayPal donation button. I write purely from the traumas I experienced in/with Pret, including from their executives/HR/HQ, and to show a different picture on the reality of Pret. I also wrote my thoughts here very quickly while watching the podcast to keep my thoughts fresh and spontaneous. I might correct typos or add some things later.
I am very upfront and want to start “negatively” with harsh critique with my frustration about American podcasts being extremely long with less than half the subject covered. It’s extremely draining listening to talk about cats, Austin Power’s introduction of the word “shagging”, dungeons, Santa Claus … and many other unrelated issues.
On a positive note, what they did at the end with “Sherlock Crumbs” is brilliant! A perfect ending to a food podcast. Not sure if they do this kind of ending on all their episodes. But that’s fantastic and a relaxing de-brief in case an episode was more serious or tense regarding a food company.
Two hours and forty-four minutes could be cut down to no more than 45 minutes and cut to the chase. The lack of research is the most frustrating thing about podcasters.
Dear American podcasters, please cut to the chase, do extensive research and if you want to reach European listeners, cut it shorter and come to and stick to the subject. Speak 3 hours about Pret, yes, I could speak 30 hours and still remain on course with Pret, but cut the unrelated smalltalk! Life is short! And from the perspective of a traumatised mind, speaking after intense stress and trauma, I can’t concentrate anymore with small-talk and unrelated things to a subject.
Free tip that you didn’t ask for, you could do a behind-the-scenes cut for subscribers where you then show any further conversation you had. Jimmy Kimmel seems to start doing this now, broadcasting snippets of behind the scenes stuff while his stage is being set up. Trevor Noah used to do it as well. They filmed the pre-shoot or commercial break or the after talk with the audience and screened it separately. That’s where they goof around with unrelated silliness.
And then for the main show, they stick to the script but mainly because they have a strict time limit. Set yourselves a time limit. You’d be amazed what creativity flows out of it. When I see almost 3 hours of a podcast time, I don’t even start listening/watching, unless in Pret A Manger’s case, I think maybe there is something I can learn and still don’t know, even though I wrote the largest exposure on Pret and know the core people, the heart of Pret upfront. But I don’t know everything and am keen to learn or get updates I don’t know about. But then just to be disappointed with half the time unrelated small-talk.
I will be criticised for my harsh European feedback, but that’s ok. I write very long blog posts myself, but I don’t swirl around so much with small-talk about nothing related to the subject.
And as Pret read my blog, they might even offer the podcasters a voucher in hopes to get good reviews. 😉
Regarding the podcast episode by Doughboys about Pret and my thoughts about it.
To the podcasters themselves and new readers: Many make the same mistake to repeat what Pret says that Pret was founded by the two college friends. Please do some more research. The first Pret opened in 1983 by Jeffrey Hyman. His sister came up with the name Pret A Manger derived from Pret A Porter. British food in the 1980s was bland, mainly containing of sandwiches with white bread and meagre bland filling. So, foreign branding with a French name was perfect to lure in customers.
Metcalfe, Beecham and Pret refuse to honour, even mention Jeffrey Hyman. It is said that they even got someone to keep deleting Hyman off Wikipedia. Having survived Pret’s shenanigans, how Pret lie and “steal” from staff etc., I absolutely believe that.
My brief interaction with a friend of the late Jeffrey Hyman, who paid tribute to him on the anniversary of his death:
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The first Pret didn’t succeed, Sinclair Beecham and Julian Metcalfe bought the name, rights etc. and RE-founded it.
Cutting to the chase. Julian Metcalfe comes from a rich family who had royalty and high society at his father’s table. His father even was the god-son of King Edward VIII, Queen Elizabeth’s uncle before he gave up the throne. More on this in the following link below. I chased Metcalfe off Twitter in 2021 after he came on for 2 days on there to keep ranting about lockdowns.
A small exposé on net-worth £215 million Metcalfe, his love for zero hour contracts and robots, his connection to the Royal family, a questionable connection with Jeffrey Epstein, what staff say about him, how suddenly all the negative reviews about him on Glassdoor disappeared after I sent it to him on Twitter, why some Asian people don’t like him, how I chased him off Twitter/X etc. etc.
Straight to his deleted tweets, but more info in the link above. Please note, my Twitter handle used to be LateNightGirlMe but I changed to expret later.
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Metcalfe’s former business partner Sinclair Beecham is back in Pret to help fix the £700 million debt (climbing up $1 billion), after already having pumped money into Pret during the pandemic. At the same time, Pret are tasked under JAB to double in size by 2026.
And recently former CEO of Burger King owner has been appointed chair at Pret. Pret already hooked up with McDonald’s in the 2000s and current CEO Pano Christou was a manager at McDonald’s before he started as assistant manager in Pret. It all stays in the junk food and low-wage sphere. Pret just has been smarter in selling themselves as healthy, ethical and fresh.
Further in the podcast:
About “front-loading” coffee. Yes, Nick Wiger did a spot-on observation. I worked at Pret between 2008 and almost 2018, at around 2012-ish Pret invited all of us managers and team leaders to head office where they held several days of a “seminar” to inform us that they raise the importance of coffee to the SAME level as food. The reason for that is the profit margin. Pret make the most money on coffee.
They emphasise that on their logo. And on Facebook Pret cleverly describe themselves as “Coffee shop”. This is a big part in getting a cut on the coffee market and it being Pret’s biggest profit margin.
On a side-note, I question Pret’s claim to do organic coffee as their owners JAB Holdings (Panera, Krispy Kreme etc. owners as well) pushed down the coffee prices with coffee farmers and the supply chain. Pret also stopped doing fair-trade coffee around the mid to late 2010’s.
Cheap coffee beans and the 60 seconds service rule tested weekly by mystery shoppers, has caused many complaints on the quality of Pret’s coffee. Here just a few throughout the years, but complaints keep coming even now.
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A recent complaint on the consistent bad coffee in Pret. (And 73% of customers on Trustpilot – 1 & 2 stars combined – dislike Pret as in end of May 2025).
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I question Pret’s claim of organic coffee also because the term “organic” can now be more loosely used as they relaxed the rules. Apart from that, Pret were banned in 2018 from claiming their food is “natural”. They then changed their logo from “Organic Coffee – Natural Food” first to “Organic Coffee – Good Food” and then to “Organic Coffee – Freshly Made Food”.
I thought I’d give Pret a hand and redo their logo to a more realistic one, especially in light of their track record with fatalities and injuries, plus former CEO Clive Schlee quoting his wife as saying that “any damn fool can run Pret“:
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But the freshly made claim is also a lie. I explain here in “Pret’s Freshly Made Brainwash” also with photos of mouldy food and my experience of how staff cheat on expiry dates etc.
And the coffee pass, or coffee subscription as it’s called in the UK, has never been “unlimited”. Pret did false advertising on this as well and were later warned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to stop doing false advertising. And the controversy on the subscription came after I worked with journalist Mike Powell on the BBC article in 2021, “Pret customers complain over drink subscription deal”.
Mike and I worked on a second follow-up report as complaints continued in 2022. But when Mike contacted Pret for a statement as journalists always do to give the company a chance to defend the allegations, Pret quickly ANNOUNCED a change to the iced drinks menu to a watered-down menu, but the menu came in 2023. Pret quickly made the announcement to avoid further backlash from customers and potential fines from the ASA who already 4 years prior banned Pret from advertising their food as “natural” and warned them to stop advertising drinks as “unlimited”.
Customers have come to the conclusion that Pret’s “broken” ice cube machines and other issues, to avoid serving the expensive drinks on the subscription, is compared to the issue with McDonald’s ice cream machines “breakdowns”.
Regarding the 2. richest family in Germany, the Reimanns with an extensive Nazi slavery past, via JAB Holdings owning Pret and other companies, Senator Elizabeth Warren is coming after JAB for aggressively buying out veterinarian clinics and pet insurance to the detriment of pet safety and hiked prices.
Regarding Pret’s sandwiches being made fresh on the day is at times also a lie. Due to the high target pressure by Pret, staff cheat since years, preparing food the day(s) before and since the pandemic Pret now have 2-day use-by-dates which they vowed to never want to do.
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Pret’s “made today, gone today” slogan has expired!
And where we staff were STRICTLY forbidden to give end-of-day cooled down hot food to charity due to safety issues with temperature fluctuation, Pret now SELL it for cheaper via the Too Good To Go app, supposedly for Pret’s “charity”. 😉
When a company is £700 million in debt, food safety is out the window. I explain this in detail in above link to the “Brainwash” post.
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Most food is NOT freshly made, and all food, except for the frozen baguettes, croissants, cookies are cooked in factories and just assembled and/or reheated in shops. I explain in detail in above “Brainwash” post. Pret’s food is COOKED in FACTORIES, assembled in shops. Hence “pret a manger” / ready to eat.
People are often surprised at the amount of Pret as well as other chains in a small area, this is due to private equity. From a Times article, quote from a PE investor: “We buy a business, work out how many restaurants you can get away with in an area until it’s become saturated, then try to convince a new buyer that there is plenty more runway”.
From: Pret was the best thing since sliced bread, but PE ruined it“
The podcasters the week before spoke about the customers who died at Panera, but didn’t mention anything about Pret’s fatalities and injuries. Why not?
In Pret, food poisoning reports have increased, in different countries as well, despite customer deaths and injuries. Just the tip of the iceberg and from 1 site only:
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I could write on and on and on, but just wanted to cover what was discussed in the podcast, and I’ve written “War and Peace” on Pret. Please do research in-depth and support small independent businesses.
My latest podcast interview on the Dr. Christine Malone podcast, “Finding out my Brother died via Email“.
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I worked at Pret A Manger and survived systemic workplace bullying during bereavement that involved HR, the top leadership, HQ and even the now “retired” former CEO Clive Schlee. Schlee has been appointed CEO of itsu in 2024 by Julian Metcalfe who gave him the CEO spot at Pret many years ago.
I declined 4 settlement offers if I am silent about my ordeal. But I rather speak out to help others. For an overview of important blog entries of my experience with Pret, please visit “My Ordeal with Pret A Manger”. The little arrow to the right next to each heading will lead directly to the post.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret and What shop MANAGERS & HQ staff say about Pret incl. CEO Pano Christou.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review as well as mentioned by the BBC.
Please also see the MEDIA page for more on my work with the press.
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Thank you for reading/listening.
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Interview:
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Bullied during bereavement in Pret A Manger 