Warnings that came from customers before and after customer deaths. But nothing was done until the deaths became public. Welcome to Pret A Manger.
When profit counts over lives, seen repeatedly in the Pret Staff Complaints collected from various Employment Review sites, YouTube, Twitter etc. as well as my experience as a Team Leader …
- Lack of training
- Over-stressed staff
- Bullying and incapable managers
- Cutting labour to maximize profit overworking, frustrating and exhausting staff
- Many non-British workers who don’t speak / read English well, misplacing products with wrong labels
- Slave-like environment (substantial list on “slavery” complaints)
- Downward shaming and blaming where managers don’t take responsibility but blame overworked staff
- Staff lose interest to care as they are being mistreated
- Pret senior leadership ignoring repeated warnings
- etc. etc. etc.
Apart from the 9 warnings, Pret under the Director of Risk and Compliance (or more appropriate “Risk-Taking and Complacency”) has ignored, with one also almost fatal, I have started to collect customers’ responses of allergen warnings to Pret regarding the lack of labelling before AND after Natasha Ednan-Laperouse died. Only this having become public now is there some slow reaction happening. But again, only a RE-action to public pressure.
Not only should Natasha’s family pursue Pret in court, but those who have had to go to hospital and those who had allergic reactions from Pret products should file a combined lawsuit against Pret. If Natasha’s death two years ago has just come to light now in 2018, how many more are there?
People asked on Twitter and other social media who should be prosecuted for “murder”, for starters I think it is for sure Jonathan Perkins who walked along the pavement after the inquest with his hands in his pockets as if taking a stroll in the park. And certainly Clive Schlee has to face the music away from his usual sweet-talk and wanting to pay people out for silence. His patronizing response in 2015 to a concerned customer has me at a loss, even though I should not be surprised at his patronizing way.
Clive Schlee in his typical patronizing and self-assured way labelled me his “late night girl” after my ordeal with Pret while he can’t label products to save a life!
Welcome to Pret A Manger, feel free to take a peek behind the scenes and the reality of a company and CEO who mainly cares for the PR(et) machine.
And this from the Guardian report is inconceivable why Pret is not taken to court, quote:
“The family’s lawyer said a photograph of a langar at the store taken eight days after Natasha’s death suggested no sticker was in place. Hyam also said that a visitor to the store in May 2017 found “there were no till stickers to be seen at the till area”.”
Inconceivable that Pret is too rich getting away while small business owners are jailed.
The start of a list of customer concerns, warnings and complaints even before Natasha died, as well as noting that the issue has still not been taken seriously after the public inquest and outrage:
And another-One CEO’s patronizing response not knowing what to do:
2. CEO’s poor response to allergic customer’s warning
“Chip Colquhoun, 34, from Cambridge, has written an open letter to Pret’s CEO Clive Schlee to say he should have heeded his warning six years ago. … Mr Colquhoun, who has a shellfish allergy, claimed that when he urged CEO Clive Schlee to put labels on Pret’s food the chief executive reportedly told him that he wouldn’t sanction adding labels because he didn’t want the restaurants looking like stationery outlets.”
3. Sesame reaction 13 months after Natasha’s death!
“Avani Bansal had a reaction to sesame from a Pret salad 13 months after Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, 15, died after eating a Pret baguette containing the seeds. …
After that, I tweeted Pret to tell them what had happened and they private-messaged me and offered me a £20 Pret voucher, and said they were working to change their labelling.
It was like they were trying to pay me off. I didn’t feel like they were taking it seriously enough.
Especially considering what happened with Natasha just over a year previously, why hadn’t they already changed their labelling by that point?”
4. Lack of labelling even after Natasha’s death became public
“I went to Pret *today* thinking you’d learned your lesson. My daughter is allergic to egg. Allergic lists were hidden away. Your staff could not confirm the ingredients on children’s products after 20 mins of online research & calls. You should be utterly and deeply ashamed.”
5. Customer hospitalized after allergic reaction
6. Still lack of labelling after Natasha’s death became public
A friend emailed me this last weekend regarding his visit to Pret the weekend before, quote: “I was in a Pret last weekend and noticed a distinct lack of labelling which I thought was probably due to how busy it was as so many customers were sheltering from the rain. I knew what I wanted and found it easily enough but it didn’t even have an identity/price label on the cabinet, let alone potential allergy advice. So they clearly still haven’t learnt their lesson, although the company would probably blame the local staff.”
7. Misplaced Sandwiches without labels
9. Pine Nuts
10. Mislabeled product: Salmon Artisan Baguette with Sesame having a Veggie Wrap Label on 12. Oct. 2018
11. Meat soup for a Vegetarian Customer – 27.10.2018 and ongoing issues even in 2019
A tutorial for Pret A Manger:
Labelling for Dummies
Photo taken in London’s Royal Festival Hall cafe 2014.
Pret can label every item with full allergens listed at the end of the day for charity, and rightly so, but has ignored repeated warnings and even deaths until this became public to slowly start trialling labelling from November 2018. That should say it all.
Pret products for charity with allergen labels. Some labels are at the back of the product.
A lawsuit filed by a customer in NYC in 2016:
“A New York City man is suing Pret a Manger after he a went into anaphylactic shock. He alleges that the restaurant staff served him food containing sesame after assuring him the food was free of the allergen.“
UPDATE
07. Oct. 2018
Second allergy death in Pret and my question to Pret on 30. Sep. 2018!
2019
Ongoing issues into 2019: Hospitalization, Mislabelling, Cockroach etc.
For the first time I share my ordeal with Pret A Manger verbally in this podcast interview:
Above interview is with Adam from The Adam Paradox podcast on my experience in Pret A Manger.
We spoke about gaslighting, “shadow banning” and censorship on social media, as well as bereavement, trauma and mental health in general. I further talked about the significant timing of Pret CEO’s announcement of the £1000 Tweet for all staff. I also talked about a regular day in Pret and how staff have to cut corners, in order to fulfill the immense workload under constant pressure.
It is hard to squeeze my traumatic experience into a podcast segment, but we covered enough to get a good picture of today’s systemic stress environment for profit driven global companies.
Please visit his Podcast and Twitter @1AdamParadox.
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. 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.
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.
Thank you for reading/listening.
Interview:
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Bullied during bereavement in Pret A Manger 
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