Scottish Daily Mail

SHAMED BOSS SET FOR £30M BONANZA AFTER SALE

- By Natalie Clarke Additional reporting: Andrew Buckwell and Alex Diaz

THE past week has been momentous for Pret A Manger’s chief executive Clive Schlee.

Inside the firm’s swanky new offices in London’s Victoria – which consist of mountains of glass, pale wood and assorted funky-coloured cushions – he has been party to a succession of important discussion­s.

Mr Schlee, 59, and other senior figures were finalising the details of the sale – signed and sealed last week – of Pret A Manger to JAB, a Luxembourg-based conglomera­te, for a reputed £1.5billion.

As a result, Mr Schlee, who attended prestigiou­s £35,000-a-year Rugby School and Oxford University where he read history, is in line for a windfall reported to be more than £30million.

The sale means a cash bonanza for everyone at Pret – not just the chief executive, married with three children, who has a large home in rural Suffolk and a house in Westminste­r. Next month all 12,000 employees will receive a bonus of £1,000.

The deal was concluded as West London Coroner’s Court was hearing distressin­g details of 15-year-old Natasha Ednan-Laperouse’s last moments, lying in the galley of a plane, her face turning blue following a severe reaction to sesame in a Pret baguette that had no allergen labelling on it.

The successful sale of the firm and Natasha’s death are the most awful mix of triumph and tragedy. Mr Schlee attended the inquest and looked pained at times as the evidence was heard. After the hearing’s conclusion on Friday, the CEO promised ‘meaningful change’ at the sandwich chain.

But aren’t the condolence­s of Mr Schlee, who joined Pret in 2003 as chief executive, inadequate? For a man who prides himself on attention to the detail, Mr Schlee seems to have had a blind spot in the case of Pret and its allergen policy.

Natasha’s family say Pret’s laissezfai­re attitude to allergen labels cost their daughter her life. So why, given that the company is awash with milallerge­n lions, didn’t it invest more in allergen labelling?

It’s not as though the dangers hadn’t been flagged up before.

In year up to June 2015, the company received nine alerts about customers who had suffered a severe allergic reaction to sesame.

Four of the cases required hospital treatment and one, involving a 17-year-old girl, was nearly fatal. The inquest heard how the girl, who comes from Cardiff, was with her father, a doctor, at the time, and he helped treat her. Later, the girl’s horrified mother contacted Pret customer services and warned them ‘other similar adverse events could easily occur’ after hearing that allergy informatio­n was only available on request, the inquest heard.

In September 2015, David Matt, a self-employed father-ofone, went into anaphylact­ic shock after eating an avocado and roast corn salad flatbread at a Pret store in New York.

Mr Matt, 34, who is also allergic to sesame and received lifesaving treatment in hospital, told the Mail: ‘I purchased the sandwich and sat down and ate it. After three minutes or so, I was having a reaction. My lips stared swelling up, my palms got very itchy and I started sweating and feeling very hot. Hives broke out on my entire body and one of my eyes started shutting.

‘The scariest part was when my throat started to shut and I was having difficulty breathing. At a certain point, I feared for my life.’

Mr Matt later filed a lawsuit against the chain, stating that the label did not list the allergen as one of the ingredient­s.

However, sesame is not classified in the US as one of eight major allergens which have to be listed, and a court found in Pret’s favour in January this year. ‘I was devastated when I heard what happened to Natasha,’ said Mr Matt. ‘Our case was brought for that exact reason, to prevent things like this happening.’

So why didn’t Pret just make a decision to put allergen labels on its products? The best one of its representa­tives could come up with was that to do so would create a risk of mislabelli­ng. What emerged during the inquest is that the sesame bread baked for Pret off-site is delivered with an allergen label on it, but when the baguette is made up in store, no allergen sticker is attached.

Instead of dreaming up its uber-stylish, eco-friendly new HQ and basking smugly in its seeming ethical credential­s, wouldn’t it have been more prudent for Mr Schlee and his executives to have spent a little more time thinking about Pret’s policy? Pret A Manger, founded in London in 1983, is, in monetary terms at least, one of the great British success stories. Last year, sales went up 13.2 per cent to £878.5million (profits were not released).

Yesterday a spokesman for the company denied that Mr Schlee is receiving £30million from the sale but declined to give another figure.

He said Mr Schlee will be reinvestin­g a substantia­l sum back into the company.

Mr Schlee, who also owns a large stake in Itsu, looks like he’ll be keeping his job, too.

‘We have asked Clive Schlee, Pret’s CEO, to work with regulators to ensure that new food labelling laws are introduced into the UK,’ new German owner JAB said yesterday.

‘Under Clive’s direction, Pret will very rapidly take action to ensure it is the leader in this critical area of food safety.’ But tragically this does not come in time for Natasha and her family.

‘A mix of triumph and tragedy’ ‘I feared for my life’

 ??  ?? Luxury: Clive Schlee has a sprawling country mansion in Suffolk. Right, at the inquest
Luxury: Clive Schlee has a sprawling country mansion in Suffolk. Right, at the inquest
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