Apparently Pret A Manger Staff Is Allowed To Give Away Free Food To Their Favorite Customers

Pret A Manger staff has the freedom to give away a certain amount of free food to customers they like, the chain's CEO revealed in an interview with the London Evening Standard.

"We looked at loyalty cards but we didn't want to spend all that money building up some complicated Clubcard-style analysis," said CEO Clive Schlee.

"Instead the staff has to give away a certain number of hot drinks and food every week. They will decide 'I like the person on the bicycle' or 'I like the guy in that tie' or 'I fancy that girl or that boy.' It means 28 percent of people have had something free. It's a nice, different way of doing it."

Schlee says that he would like to see Pret make its way to the top of the fast food chain, competing with brands like McDonald's and Starbucks, but he plans to make that happen "bit by bit and quite cautiously. McDonald's has been around for 60 years, so you can't do this in one generation."

The piece also reveals, by the way, that Pret's top-selling item is the banana.