I want to put a few numbers of how Pret A Manger “pay” themselves and pay people who suffered THE worst customer service any of us can suffer: death and life-changing injuries.
I want to strongly say upfront for anyone reading this to please abstain from social media posts or any conversation that BLAMES victims and survivors of food allergy injuries, or injuries of any kind while having a pre-existing condition.
Pret are in the news again in partly paying the family of Celia Marsh, the 2. customer who died from hidden allergen a fraction of the £1.25 million.
Now in this case, it wasn’t Pret’s fault as there have been issues with the plant-based supplier before and the lady who owns the company broke down in court, unlike Pret, who did business as usual until all this became public. BUT, Pret were reprimanded in the inquest for not doing checks of the suppliers.
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As it was with Natasha Ednan-Laperouse who was the first customer who died a year before Celia Marsh died, people flock to social media commenting things like, “if I had such life-threatening allergies, I wouldn’t eat out…” etc.
This victim blaming has me up the walls!
For one, everyone, with or without any health condition has the right to eat out and be safe, not fearing for their lives.
Secondly, if you want to be a 1000% sure that you are safe when eating food, you’d need to grow all your food in your back yard. We all know how realistic this is.
Supermarkets have CONSTANTLY product recalls due to missing ingredients on the labels or mislabelling altogether. As I write this post on 11th December 2025, I checked various supermarkets on product recalls. One of the latest product recalls as I write is from Tesco on 8th December 2025 of “Tesco 6 Aubergine Katsu Bao Buns 258g” due to undeclared dairy in the product, the very ingredient Celia Marsh died of. She would have bought this item after reading the label and NOT seeing milk listed!
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I could fill my blog with further product recalls from various supermarkets that happen weekly. The sheer nightmare of allergy sufferers having to fear if they go home alive just after eating FOOD that has missing ingredients not labelled … I cannot even imagine.
We do not need to drink alcohol or take drugs, we do not need to gamble or do risky sports, but we need to eat!!!
So, if you’re one of those who victim blames allergy sufferers, get the fudgecake out of here!
I want to put some numbers here and ask readers if you think Pret and their owners JAB Holdings have the right priorities.
Celia Marsh’s family to receive £1.25 million in compensation
Important to note that Celia Marsh leaves behind 5 daughters and a husband, and possibly grand-children. This is important when seeing further numbers below. I am happy they at least got something, but this sum is appalling!
After the customer fatalities and injuries became public in September 2018, Pret set aside £10 million for allergy issues. Even that is a joke!
Quote from below The Independent article: “Having been asked to approve one part of the settlement, the judge, Master Mark Gidden, was told that Pret will be responsible for 25 per cent of the payout, with Planet Coconut’s insurers liable for the rest.” End of quote.
So Pret will only pay £312,500, less than the now (2025) at least £500,000 annual salary for CEO Pano Christou.
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There, I fixed it for ya.
At the bottom of this page, I end with a brilliant little summary in how Pret dealt with customer deaths and injuries. I worked in Pret when people died and gotten injured, we weren’t even told.
Unfortunately the person who made this video did not know at the time until I told them that Pret were fined £800,000 in 2023 after yet again ignoring safety issues. Pret ignored for 19 months a faulty freezer door handle repair call-out and staff kept getting trapped inside the walk-in freezer for a few seconds and minutes. But then around 2021 a staff got trapped for over two-and-a-half hours fighting for her life. I have no update yet, but around 2023 she was still waiting for compensation in a separate court case, as the £800K went to Westminster Council.
The fine was initially set by the judge at £1.6 million but was halved as Pret pleaded guilty early.
Celia Marsh family’s compensation of £1.25 million in contrast to:
- £800,000 (would have been £1.6 million) for Westminster Council after staff survived in the freezer.
. - CEO Pano Christou’s bonus which is at least £5 million per year now, if not £6 million and counting as Pret expands aggressively under their owners. And that’s bonus alone.
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- €10 million for Jewish charities.
Summary from the following video: “The $40 Billion Nazi Fortune Behind Your Morning Coffee“
Pret’s owners JAB Holdings came clean in 2019 about their Nazi past.
Brief info, or reminder: JAB Holdings is the private equity arm of Germany’s 2. richest family, the secretive Reimann family. The Reimanns are also the richest family in Austria as the heirs have taken on citizenship and residence in Austria due to better tax breaks. JAB Holdings run companies including Pret via tax haven Luxembourg.
When I learnt that rich people often move to Austria for tax reasons, I understood why former Pret CEO, now itsu CEO, Clive Schlee has a main residence in Austria as well. Even while working in Pret I kept hearing about executives flying over to Schlee’s Austrian residence for meetings. So, he seems to have his main residence registered there on top of at least 2 properties in the UK, and as is wife is from the USA, I’m sure he has property in the States as well. But Austria is a key here.
JAB’s joke donation to Jewish charities as explained in “The $40 Billion Nazi Fortune Behind Your Morning Coffee“:
December 2019 – donation of €5 million to the conference of Jewish material claims against Germany to support Holocaust survivors through an emergency assistant program.
The funds were distributed over 3 years, 2020 to 2022, instalments of €2.2 million, €2.2 million and €1.1 million. Supporting programs across 34 countries.
Year 1: €2.2 million
Year 2: €2.2 million
Year 3: €1.2 million
… designated over 34 countries!!!
The remaining €5 million was designated to find and support the remaining forced labourers used by Benckiser (JAB) during WW2.
By the end of 2020, researchers have identified 838 people who were forced to work for Benckiser during the war.
Calculate €5 million between 838 people!!!
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€5965 (£5,230) per person.
And to top it:
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- Ex Pret CEO Clive Schlee pocketed a juicy £30 million bonus when JAB took over Pret and he “retired” for 5 years, now sneaking back into the CEO gig at itsu.
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RECAP:
- £800,000 (down from £1.6 million) for Westminster council. Freezer survivor still waiting for compensation as of 2023, no updates yet unless she signed a NDA to not speak further about it.
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- £10 million set aside for allergy cases after TWO customers died and dozens where injured.
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- At least £5 million annually in bonus for current CEO Pano Christou
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- Under £9 million for more than 830 people and their families in 34 ountries via Jewish charities spread out over years in instalments
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- £30 million for Clive Schlee.
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- £1.25 million (£312,500 from Pret) for a family of 5 children and a widow after the tragic and avoidable death of Celia Marsh.
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Pret pay £312,500. And from the full £1.25 million, 30% goes to the Marsh’s legal team. Lawyers always take a 30-33% cut. The Marsh family basically only receive £875,000. And that with 5 daughters and a widow husband. Roughly £145,830 per person. But I read somewhere that they will donate to charity. Fair enough, but the principle remains. A lousy compensation.
Tell me where Pret’s and JAB’s priorities are!
I call Celia Marsh’s death avoidable because I firmly believe that if Pret were “kind, honest and generous” and “doing the right thing naturally”, as CEO Pano Christou still claims on his podcast tours throughout 2025, Celia Marsh would have made an informed decision to NOT eat at Pret a year after Natasha Ednan-Laperouse died.
Pret ran out of kindness, honesty and generosity it seems, to inform the public that Natasha died and several have gotten injured. Oh wait, they never had it in the first place.
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I write about a week-long, possibly two weeks long training seminar Pret held at the Barbican Center for us managers, assistant managers and team leaders to attend. This seminar was held in June 2017, a year after Natasha Ednan-Laperouse died. We were “taught” the same old, same old stuff about how to love-bomb customers and not call customers “sir” and “madam” as some have written to Pret that they were offended being mis-gendered. We leaders were supposed to bring what we “learnt” (which was nothing new) back to our shops to “teach” the teams.
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NOT ONE MENTION THAT A CUSTOMER DIED THE YEAR BEFORE!!!
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And not one mention that customers have gotten injured, some landing in hospital (before AND after Natasha died), like a man in New York who sued Pret after he also suffered anaphylactic shock from unlabelled sesame. The man lost the case as at the time (2015) sesame wasn’t mandatory listing in the USA like it was in Canada where the product came from. It was labelled on the box, but Pret didn’t feel the urgency to label it on the product or shelf, not even after they were sued. President Biden changed that. Sesame now must be labelled in the USA.
I explain in detail in above post about that nonsense Barbican seminar which seemed to be more that the development department needed to blow their yearly budget. So, they put on this stupid “seminar” reprimanding us to not call customers sir or madam! I explain how Pret could have changed course and invited allergy experts to train us in that seminar! Experts would have stood in line to speak in Pret as Pret were super popular in 2017 and had a ton of money to get these experts in. Pret had enough money and favour even with the press, compared to now having been written down a third of their value in 2025.
Our mission was to bring back what we “learnt”, but instead, we including the manager made fun of it as Pret’s MAIN focus is the appearance of happiness, enforced via weekly mystery shopper visits.
Of the many allergy injuries that were reported to and logged by Pret before Natasha died, 9 of those were due to sesame.
Now, guess what the seminar was called?
Be kind, honest, generous.
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Link.
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Video formerly titled as “Don’t eat at Pret A Manger until you watch this”:
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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.
NEW LinkTree.
Thank you for reading/listening.
©2017 – Present: expret.org
Interview:
(Please be aware that the player shows 0:00 but just press play)
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Bullied during bereavement in Pret A Manger 
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