#PretAMangerReviews – Bullied during bereavement in Pret A Manger

My email to Pret A Manger executives & journalists on Pret’s NEWEST PR STUNT

December 28, 2023September 19, 2025 I Survived Pret A Manger (unsafe company)Leave a comment

Dear reader, the following is my email to Pret executives and journalists today (28.12.2023). Even though I’m inadvertently doing advertising for Pret, this needs to be written about.

Journalists I openly copied in for Pret to see include Sarah Butler (Guardian), Vivienne Nunis (BBC), Mike Powell (BBC, Times, freelance etc.), Janet Eastham (Telegraph), Amy Sharpe (Mirror etc.) …. and many others.

I copy my mail verbatim and haven’t changed a word here except corrected spelling mistakes. I only squeezed in the word “being” in brackets below.

Please also note that current CEO Pano Christou was UK Managing Director under former CEO Clive Schlee who patronised me and had a LAUGH about the state of my mental health (calling me his “late night girl”). Pano Christou was Schlee’s #2 right-hand man when customers died and when I was targeted at Pret under HR and management. He can’t wriggle himself out by saying he wasn’t CEO then. He was the #2 guy in Pret.

My email:

To Pret A Manger executives, HR, journalists and others,

I hope everyone had a good Christmas and will have peaceful New Years celebrations and healthy new year.

I am openly copying (CC) journalists and others in, including Dr. Shani Dhanda, whose emails are in the public domain (Twitter, Linkedin etc.). I am blind carbon copying (BCC) others in who reached out to me and/or their emails are private.

Anyone who doesn’t want to receive my mail, please block me. I write so SUBSTANTIALLY for journalists to know NOW and have a reference as I still don’t know how long I can survive.

Upfront to anyone who doesn’t know me, I write so BLUNT after what I survived in Pret during bereavement with many managers shouting at me, gaslighting me/us, pretending our work is not good while we work(ed) our butts off. And behind all this is Pret A Manger’s CORE team in head office. Make my day and sue me Pret! You don’t because it would open a can of worms for you, and you have already bad press as it is.

I write to you Pret regarding your latest PR stunt which you ONLY post on Linkedin because on X/FB/IG you would get backlash from current and former Pret employees, especially frontline shop staff.

Scrolling up in the following X feed that was posted today (28.12.2023) where a former Pret staff is appalled about Pret’s PR stunt on Linkedin. I don’t know him, but have read his previous call-outs on Pret.

Please scroll up in the following X feed where a former staff with mental health problems calls you out after Dr. Dhanda spoke in your company. Quote by Juan Aquiles Gomez: “How can you have the audacity to publish something like that, when I am a victim of dismissal for reasons motivated by my mental health in pret? It seems very miserable to me.”

(Please note, my tweets disappeared due to censoring).

I don’t know him, but I believe him after what I and many others suffered in Pret.

PHYSOLOGICAL “ABUSE” VIA STRICT WEEKLY MYSTERY SHOPPER VISITS:

I could post countless blog posts I wrote with screenshots I took to show how Pret is NOT disability-friendly. Pret might be accommodating disabilities in head office where staff are not required to be super fast under extreme stressful conditions in shops, but even if Pret really wanted to have a disability inclusive work environment in SHOPS, they simply can NOT achieve this BECAUSE the objective of Pret has always been, remains and will always be: LOW wage workers working under fast and stressful conditions, having to smile and love-bomb customers or they don’t get bonus and then get penalised.

Please google Timothy Noah’s “The Enforced Happiness of Pret A Manger” and see examples of Pret’s shopper scheme on my blog. I stopped updating any new reports as the core effort remains the same: low-wage shop staff HAVE TO smile, up-sell, and bend in all directions to get a few pennies more bonus, and even then it’s not given or withheld:

The DANGERS of EMOTIONAL LABOUR

LINK to blog post.

I was reprimanded by management after the mystery shopper commented that I didn’t smile, despite also commenting that my service was polite. This was days after I buried my brother. The mystery shopper did not know I was traumatically bereaved and had no choice but to work and STILL even helped shop after shop after shop to succeed, incl. becoming #1 and the top 10 in the premier league DURING traumatic grief!

NEW PR STUNT USING DISABILITY-FRIENDLY SPEAKERS:
(But ONLY on Linkedin 😉 )

Pret, you purposely don’t post Dr. Dhanda’s talk in your company on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter/X because you know very well that Pret staff would raise their voices again and you have a hard time trying to hide their comments, like you did a while ago when PR-stunting again looking for staff. And you know how I call you out on the BS you post on social media. But you feel safe on Linkedin because business people who are mostly working in PR and marketing, which involves putting out a fake image to the public, they love you and tell you all day what an awesome company you are! You have always surrounded yourself with “yes-men/women” and avoided platforms where people with inside knowledge and common sense call out your bullsh!t, pardon my French, but “foreign branding” works both ways.

And YES, it would be helpful to have a more inclusive work environment for staff with any disabilities, but to Dr. Dhanda, please know that this is yet another of Pret’s PR stunts to appear ethical and caring in the public. Reality is VERY different and I keep imploring journalists to go into Pret for longer than a week, which Amy Sharpe from the Sunday Mirror did. She only worked a week in the late shift. But it needs a journalist to work for at least 1 MONTH in both shop and kitchen in the morning to SEE the systemic issues and dodgy things staff are forced to do to achieve targets!

I KNOW Pret having worked there 10 years in over 30 shops, and survived their antics DURING traumatic bereavement. Please see my post about Lila Warren. I declined Pret’s “hush money” and never signed an NDA.

To Pret, I did screenshots of what staff said before you hid/deleted some comments by staff and then disabled the comment section for further comments by staff.

I put some screenshots here, but there’s more:

Last minute?? Staffing Disruption @ Pret A Manger 🤣😃😂.

LINK to blog post.

So, Pret you only use Linkedin where mostly business and marketing people frequent and most low-wage staff and customers don’t hang out or if they do, they are still brainwashed by your lies, yes LIES! But even if I speak out on Linkedin, you’ll get my Linkedin account reported and disabled again as usual. Make my day!

You used NHS workers for PR when you made the announcement on 18. March 2020 just before first lockdown announcing free coffees and 50% rebates for NHS workers. And the very next morning 19. March 2020 Pano Christou sent a mass email to all shops to announce cuts to staff (beginning with hour cuts on their contracts to save money and later cutting wages as well while Pano got a juicy payrise and millions in bonus).

Low-wage Pret workers PAID for your NHS freebie PR stunt.

I was contacted again as usual by staff with your full CEO email, but this SLIPPED by journalists as everyone was DISTRACTED by this PR stunt: https://expret.org/2020/03/26/to-nhs-employees

You made Pret workers pay for this PR stunt. Are you not ashamed?! Do you have NO shame?!

You read my blog and copy ideas as you usually do because I keep pointing out how badly you treat staff with mental health problems. I even wrote an open note to the Pret Foundation after you did NOT take on a man with mental health problems, even though he did excellent, but he was too slow! You didn’t even take him on in the shop like I often fought for when my manager wanted to fire a staff in the kitchen and I pleaded to put them in the shop where they’d thrive!

Open Letter to the Pret Foundation:

Open Letter to the Pret Foundation Trust

LINK to blog post.

Your newest PR stunt, that you only post on Linkedin is to pretend to be disability-friendly while your workers suffer mentally as well as physically and financially. And no, your pay-rise PR stunt came because the government raised the minimum wage and will raise the min, wage again in April 2024. You had and have no choice to raise pay a few pennies above min. wage when the govt raises the pay again, and you will PR your way through the media again in 2024 proclaiming to be so generous.

The Guardian’s Sarah Butler’s article again from 2021, and I have already seen that CEO’s bonus has reached over £5 million now.

“Pret CEO handed near-£4m bonus in year staff pay was cut.

Pano Christou also given 27% salary rise in 2021 as chain took more than £50m in government support” LINK to article.

DISHONESTY, LACK OF INTEGRITY, DISCRIMNATION, CARELESSNESS … WILL ALWAYS BE EXPOSED:

I will stop here as I tend to write long emails and blog posts, but I will never stop speaking out against Pret’s fake façade, hypocrisy, discrimination towards staff with mental and physical disabilities and how you targeted me under the watchful eye and involvement of your corrupt HR department, David Carter, Lila Warren (development manager), Sarah Bohn who also held a grievance and blocked me on Twitter/X already a while ago after I posted to her about Lila Warren, her direct colleague’s conduct under Pret’s leadership. (Please note, my tweets disappeared due to censoring).

Questions to Lila Tighilt Warren #PretAManger

LINK to blog post.

And then I was fired days after my dad came out of a three-week coma which you knew about after what Lila has done which confused me further!

I will never be silent Pret, Clive Schlee, Pano Christou, even Julian Metcalfe whom I chased off Twitter, but screenshot his appalling tweets before he deleted his account after 2 days on Twitter:

And now you jump on the Disabiliy-inclusiveness bandwagon to appear great again!

I am sickened by your ongoing disregard for human beings, customers and employees alike. I am still appalled that you didn’t tell us, didn’t do ANYTHING when 2 customers died and 20+ got injured.

73% of customers on Trustpilot (1&2 star reviews combined) disapprove of Pret on a variety of issues, many having sworn to never set foot inside Pret again

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/pretamanger.co.uk?sort=recency

Go on, send some people to post FAKE reviews like it is alleged that you tasked someone to post false info on Wikipedia until the person got banned! Because you don’t want the public to know that Jeffrey Hyman founded Pret before he went bust and sold the rights, incl. name and LOGO to Beecham and Metcalfe which you still use at HQ and some shops! A friend of Jeffrey Hyman spills the beans on this, and yes, I already screenshot in case it gets deleted/hidden:

GROWTH DOESN’T EQUAL (being) ETHICAL AND CARING:

You will grow as you are tasked by JAB to speed-open worldwide. Pano Christou will set a legacy for himself to have grown Pret worldwide, but the truth about your work conditions and how horrifically bad you treat your employees will continue to be told, not just by me.

You can keep on trying to get me shut down everywhere, I will pop up again and again and again and again and again and will NEVER be silent about your appalling way you treat employees who helped you become so successful, as well as having carried you through the pandemic and as a thank you get their pay, benefits, paid breaks etc. cut.

I am proud to have put Pret on the map of reality where 5 years ago hardly anyone believed me how badly you treat your staff, and now it’s become more common knowledge and customers also call you out publicly. And I am extremely proud of having made the step to speak out publicly even while I was shaking in my boots. I don’t shake any-more. You have become the laughing-stock of many.

I have PTSD and am still only surviving and have written thousands of posts and emails in traumatic state and work on the drinking bit, I have written to GOOD people who deserve better in my traumatised state and had Pret managers and HQ staff LAUGH about me. I have many regrets with GOOD people, journalists, friends and strangers, but after what you Pret did via Lila Warren it has destroyed my trust in people. I hope you’re proud to have destroyed yet another staff member on top of customers’ lives, now continuing to sell Mislabeled and even MOULDY food due to the immense stress you put on understaffed workers.

To ALL journalists, friends, former and current Pret staff who reached out, my ongoing apologies to you for my mails! It’s NOT you, it’s me.

To Pret, I apologised enough to you and was gaslit by your disgusting conduct from the CORE of Pret employees incl. executives (Clive Schlee calling me his “late night girl” having a laugh about my mental state). I will NEVER ever regret having called you Pret out on their lies and appalling treatment of myself and many other staff. My www.LateNightGirl.org url remains as a reminder of your poor conduct with hard-working employees. Weeks after he called me that, he gave the green light to fire me, KNOWING my dad just came out of a coma. You have no scruple and will be called out until my last breath.

I continue to put in my late-night-girl shifts and will never be silent.

If anyone outside of Pret wonders WHY not more staff speak out, they are EXHAUSTED and disheartened! And many are “brainwashed” to function and believe Pret are good to them. They feel stuck without a choice of a better employment. Pret degrades hope and confidence in people. I was brainwashed for a while and then too exhausted to find another job. Staff, mostly from other countries, have been conditioned in fear management. I don’t fear Pret any-more. Not one bit!

Having survived and still surviving, I will never be silent! All I hope is for Labour to enter government and in time change the appalling work conditions in companies! Hope dies last.

For anyone OUTSIDE of this toxic Pret A Manger team, my apologies for this long mail. This is mainly for reference for journalists and friends and for Dr. Dhanda.

Kind regards,

expret.org aka former CEO Clive Schlee’s “late night girl”.

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 and what Shop Managers and HQ Staff say about Pret and their leadership.
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 and was mentioned by the BBC.

Please also see the MEDIA page for more.

.
Thank you for reading/listening.

Interview:

Unless otherwise stated or linked to, this website and all writings within this site are the property of expret.org and are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. Reproduction and distribution of my writings without written permission is prohibited.
©2017 – Present: expret.org unless otherwise stated. All Rights reserved.

Disclaimer.

Pret A Manger Quietly Change their Slogans

July 13, 2023September 19, 2025 I Survived Pret A Manger (unsafe company)Leave a comment

UPFRONT: Not sure why the screenshots below are stretched vertically, another one of WordPress’ little “changes” that upsets us writers a lot! Just click on the links underneath the pictures for context. Trying to fix it.

WordPress already censored me on Pret’s behalf by having moved my blog into the adult section where porn sites are stored. This is because they need to keep free speech, but it means that WordPress users cannot find my blog when logged in and in the reader’s section looking for Pret articles. My blog is hidden despite me PAYING for it! .

“mater” Yep. I does “mater” doesn’t it.

Quote:

“Thank you for your patience while we’ve reviewed your site’s content and your previous correspondence with WordPress.com.

As previously mentioned, your site expret.org contains materials which meet our definition of mature content including use of strong language and mature subject mater that is not suitable for all WordPress.com users.

As such—and as outlined on this support page—we prevent this type of content from appearing in public spaces within WordPress.com such as the Reader. Beyond that, your site remains publicly accessible online and can be viewed by anyone.”

If any webdeveloper reads this, please let me know if you can help me with transferring my blog to a new webprovider.

Also, side-note, someone is speed-copying my blog posts lately again. Don’t forget copyright in case you try to publish and claim copyright. You won’t get away with it.

And if anyone tries to get my blog shut down like some always try with my social media channels, I have already everything backed up since I started the blog. So, keep trying.

Even if it’s hard to believe, but I rarely post anything regarding Pret anymore, as I still try to recover from the multiple “hells” I went through these last 8+ years. I have also upset and offended many good people in my PTSD drunken stupor. No excuse. I keep people away as best as possible.

I have written the anger off my system on this blog, but am still struggling on several fronts. I have written everything and anything regarding Pret that I know of and forced Pret to secretly change many things while remaining uncredited. But this one is important. I try to keep it short. Haha! 😬

As Pret know my blog and I have posted on different social media channels and emails etc. how Pret’s “freshly made” slogan is also a lie, Pret seem to slowly and quietly change their packaging bit by bit as:

1. I know from experience having worked at Pret where some products are prepared the day before and then just the finishing touches applied the next morning, or even worse, preparations done on Friday or Saturday and then finished on Monday. Seen it countless times over the years. I write extensively on HOW Pret’s food is REALLY “made” in Freshly Prepared Brainwash, with more photos of mouldy food in Pret’s Food isn’t Fresh.

2. Staff have told me that, especially during the pandemic, Pret started to freeze soups (which are cooked in factories anyway and then just re-heated in shops) to prolong expiry dates, as well as soup bags that were cooled off after the water bath, then again re-heated 3-4 times while procedure is to THROW it OUT when the bag is unsold!

Pret soups come in boxes of 4 plastic bags. One plastic bag of soup contains 6 cups for customers, so the cost of throwing even one bag out is quite high, but I did it anyway! Also toasties, uncooked hot wraps and sandwiches are carried over to the next day(s). The soup issue and staff interaction I also put in above “Brainwash” post.

Another staff a while ago contacted me saying that Pret quietly are removing the “freshly made” fridge signs. I have to find that mail, can’t remember if it was via contact form/email or on Twitter, Facebook etc. DM.

3. But more telling is where customers post pictures of mouldy food and use-by dates on social media, as I put in above “Food isn’t Fresh” post.

The familiar sticker: “Made today – Gone today – No ‘sell-by’ date – no night life”

Haha! Of course Pret might claim they now say “use-by” not “sell-by” date!

And the REALITY, which has always been the case, but now more in the open, WITH the date:

Close-up:

This tweet is from 12.07.2023 but the use-by date is for the next day 13.07.2023. And no, don’t be fooled when Pret might say that when customers buy the product they can put it in their fridge overnight for the next day. Nopes, PRET themselves will have this in the fridge for the next day(s).

READY TO (CH)EAT:

And having worked at Pret seeing countless times staff PEELING off labels and then re-attaching a new date on the old product to avoid waste. Staff do that since forever with expiry dates on ingredients. I explain this in detail on my podcast on HOW staff cheat. And no, in case you wonder, I never did that because when caught you get fired unless you’re “close” friends with the manager or OPs manager. This was the main reason why I was never promoted beyond team leader level. But I didn’t care. I slept well at night and never had to look over my shoulder.

I worked at Caffe Nero where they also stretch the dates of the cakes with a label-gun individually on defrozen cakes. And I even went after the manager when my boss left, I went back to the cakes and re-attached the REAL date!

Nero customers always complained that the cakes are hard and taste dry, and I was always embarrassed about it. My manager would always peel off the old date and attach a new extended date. I then went after it once my manager was gone for the day and changed it back to the old date and WASTED all the cakes that expired that day or days before!

DON’T HIRE ME if you want me to cheat! Not going to happen! I made mistakes in general, but not cheats with health, safety and quality! Do with it what you want!

I got myself in “unwritten” trouble with Pret management when I told colleagues to please not risk their jobs by “stretching” dates (peel off old date, attach new date) for management. Managers let team leaders and staff in general do the dirty work for them.

REVIEWS:

And yet, customers leave tons of reviews on Trustpilot, Google etc. and all social media channels on the low food quality and stale, even mouldy food in Pret. 61% of customers on Trustpilot (as of July 2023) aren’t happy with Pret, many even vowing to never set foot inside Pret again.

Here is my BIASED opinion of a Trustpilot customer review being my favourite. Quote from 01. May 2023:

“Why Pret deserves to fail

The Pret on Marylebone St, literally closed the door in my face.
Said they were closing, still staff working the counters.

Pret deserves to fail. From a once customer focused company its now a brand which needs to go”

Direct LINK to review.

Of course Pret won’t fail, CEO Pano Christou having come from McDonald’s as a manager started at Pret as an assistant manager 20 odd years ago, has come full circle turning Pret into a low-quality McDonald’s-type business. And don’t forget that Pret sold 33% to McD in the late 1990’s to get their foot into the U.S. market. McD sold their part again of course. JAB seem asleep but they might wake up and consider to sell Pret to the next private equity “pimp” to further squeeze the lifeblood out of the brand. Do what you do best.

NOTHING can touch Pret, not even customer fatalities.

I recently got yet another reddit post hidden for pointing out that Pret are actually a small company, after 40 years in business when someone claimed Pret was HUGE. Nope, they ain’t! They just missed the train to become too big to fail.

And the recently opened Toronto, Canada pop-up already has 1 star reviews with one customer wishing he could give 0 stars. People don’t know that Pret received £485million from owners JAB and shareholders during the pandemic closures, with the ridiculous task to speed-open 200 shops worldwide by the end of 2023, and to double in size by 2025.

This pressure leads to not only further food safety issues, lack of staff training, but also shows how Pret cheat by opening little pop-ups in existing businesses to reach that target. Canada is the best example. And even India already starts to get complaints DAYS after opening.

Link

I’m sure Pret by now have found the negative customer reviews, many which are written under people’s names with accounts showing many other reviews. So, Pret can’t claim that these are fake or biased, like Julian Metcalfe claimed.

But with the staff reviews on Glassdoor and Indeed having mysteriously improved into more positive reviews, despite the lack of, exhausted and increasingly rude/aggressive staff, watch the next few months when customer reviews improve as well. Once Pret finds out about the poor customer reviews watch positive reviews increase in the coming months. 😉

And, as a friend of the original Pret founder Jeffrey Hyman told me on Twitter that Pret recruited someone to keep changing the Wikipedia entry on Pret having opened in 1986 (not 1983) to avoid mentioning Hyman, from my experience with Pret’s dishonesty and trickery, I believe that.

Just few of the many customer complaints on Pret’s new India outlet, most are on Instagram:

You simply can’t fool paying-customers! They TRUST their senses regardless of what sweet-talking bullsh!t Pret give in the press and on social media. And Pret’s time to fool the public like they did in “fat” and rich times pre-2018 customer deaths news and pre-pandemic is over. In lean times the real face shows!

Where people on social media did NOT believe me when I started to expose Pret in May 2018, many even blocking me, cussing me out, now it’s common knowledge how bad Pret really are. And no, people didn’t always block or cuss me out because I posted drunken tweets, that’s understandable and expected. But I was often just linking them to evidence they didn’t want to know about. Ignorance is bliss, and I destroyed their bliss! Sorry, but I care about your health more than your wishful-thinking of a multi-billion £$ fairy-tale company that cares NOTHING about you, except for your money!

“Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Pret RE-founder Julian Metcalfe once tweeted to me (RT’d my comments) that itsu staff reviews on him are biased as anyone with an anonymous account can just leave a review. Yes, he has a point, of course, but 1. why would anyone leave a fake negative review for what reason? And 2. the CUSTOMER reviews on Pret are often done under people’s names with an extensive review history on their profiles! So, try again!

Plus, pictures of mouldy food speak louder than a 1000 words as we know.

“NATURAL” Fools:

Pret were banned from claiming their food is “natural”, so they changed the packaging and logo from “organic coffee – natural food” to “organic coffee – freshly made food” (I question their claim to do organic coffee as the beans are so cheap and Pret stopped fair-trade already years ago. Plus, customers don’t like Pret’s coffee! But that’s another matter).

And now, Pret also changed the packaging from “freshly made food” to “handmade each day” via a few humps. Pret again play with customers assumptions to think the food is “freshly” made each day while it’s not. It’s a safe way for Pret to cover their stinking asses, as they are not claiming “freshly made” on the packaging, while it’s still on their logo on shops. Customers will assume it’s freshly made after years of brainwash.

Before the freshly made bad hair-day:

Now as in 12.07.2023 Pret seems to have run out of space to squeeze in the “freshly” bit.

Link

Of course it’s cheaper to change the packaging of the next batch in the factory once the old batch is used, than it is to change the logo for the entire brand on shop fronts. Pret threatened a three-man London small bakery with the name “Bread A Manger” with legal action to change their name. At first the bakery wanted to resist, but quickly bowed to the pressure and changed their name to “Bread And Macaroon” to save money on the “BM” logo. They estimated that the brand-name change for that ONE little shop would cost them £8000!

Funny enough, there are businesses with the name “Pronto Pret A Manger” or “Miss Pret A Manger” and others with the exact “pret a manger” term in their names. They also sell food, but Pret choose to pick on this small business with a LESS similar name! Knowing Pret like the back of my hand, they always look for the LEAST resistance and the most vulnerable to pick on.

Pret, including Clive Schlee, David Carter (HR), Lila Warren and a host of OPs managers and shop managers tried their best while I was traumatically bereaved. But you simply don’t pick a fight with a traumatised person who has nothing to lose and think you get away with it, stupid!

You just don’t do that, fathermucker!

And little side-note, I’ve been exposing Pret since 5+ years now, and Pret don’t have the balls to threaten me with a lawsuit! I wonder why, I wonder why!

If Pret were to sue me or make a public statement about me, it would open a can of worms for them and have my blog land on Wikipedia, like Andrej Stopa is mentioned on Wiki after Pret made a public announcement about why they fired him. So, they remain silent about me. Fncking cowards!

Someone anonymous already mentioned my blog on Wiki, but it got deleted as the main editor doesn’t have evidence that my experience is legit like they have with Andrej, because Pret made a public statement in 2012. Despite me having evidence. Doesn’t matter.

I was positively shocked one day to find in my blog statistics that 10 visitors came from Wikipedia. I made the mistake to contat the main editor, and the rest is history (as in my blog being deleted again off Wiki. There you go).

Whoever put my blog on Wiki. Thank you. I guess I upset too many egos, so it got deleted. Or, maybe I just am too much of a woman to feature in a man’s world of greed.

Yep, I’m playing THAT card, because it’s true!

Whoever put my blog on Wiki, I’d like to buy you a coffee in an indie business. But that will never happen of course.

I tried to reach out to formerly Bread A Manger to NOT bow, but failed to reach them. Oh well, I tried!

If rebranding costs a small independent shop £8K, do a rough calculation how much it would cost Pret to change their shop logo and branding across the company worldwide. Especially since Pret already had to change it around 2018 to take the word “natural” off! They might have to lower staff wages again to pay for it! 😉

“French-run London bakery accuses Pret A Manger of ‘bullying’ over demand for name change”.

FRESH – FREEEESH-SH-SH-SHHHHH – SHUSH – SH!T – SHUT UP! 🤫

But if you read Pret’s social media posts, and ESPECIALLY advertisers and PR firms for Pret, they all emphasise and keep repeating the brainwash of “freshest” food, “freshly made food”, “fresh food” etc. The public is hypnotised with “fresh, fresh, fresh …” I can’t help but think that this is Pret’s typical chaos in their communications. The memo hasn’t gotten through yet.

For example also, after 3 years of tweeting about and at Pret, Pret finally blocked me on Twitter around 2020-ish. Pret also DISABLED the comment section on Instagram where I can see my comments when logged in, but it’s hidden from the public when logged out. Pret did not block me on Instagram nor on Facebook (as of July 2023) while I’m blocked on Twitter. Pret’s typical inconsistencies.

ORGANIC COFFINS – NATURAL FOOLS:

Also, when former CEO Clive Schlee was on Twitter before his account was deleted in 2020, he never blocked me, while Pano Christou when he was UK Managing Director and before he deleted his Twitter account in July 2019, blocked me.

I changed Pret’s logo already years ago when customer deaths and injuries became public. Pret didn’t even tell us staff about it. And former CEO Clive Schlee kept mentioning in interviews that his wife always said to him that “any damn fool can run Pret“!

Yes, Clive did, and so does Pano. Where Clive ran the ship into an iceberg, Pano is sinking it!

I think this logo more reflects reality.

And apart from poor customer reviews …

SALES ARE DOWN:

The Office for National Statistics has posted that Pret’s transactions are down in MOST locations, while Pret and business partners/PR firms work hard to portray Pret to be thriving.

Granted, it is summer when many customers are on holiday. BUT the customer reviews cannot be ignored.

Link

That’s what you get when you start turning into “card-only” shops and p!ss customers off with the flawed coffee subscription, exhausted/rude staff, dirty shops, mouldy food, closed toilets even for paying customers with disabilities etc. etc. etc.

But how about looking into Pret’s packaging they quietly change, their signs, logos, claims?

Ooops, it’s gotten long again!

But I finish with a YouTube slide of “Pret’s Year in Review 2022” that I do each year. Can’t wait for the upcoming year in review 2023 at the end of December with some really juicy customer posts, and some from staff. The choice this year is very hard, that’s the best part! And it’s only July! 😀

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.