Pret a Manger recently received a large fine from a British local government in connection to a work safety incident involving a walk-in freezer.
The roughly $1 million (£800,000) fine stems from a July 2021 incident in which a female employee got trapped in a walk-in freezer and was unable to get out for a couple of hours, the Westminster City Council said Wednesday. Pret has 28 days to pay the penalty.
The U.K.-based sandwich chain got hit with the big fine after entering a guilty plea. Prior to that, the Westminster City Council said its investigation found that “there was no suitable risk assessment for workers working in temperature-controlled environments.”
The council serves town of Westminster, positioned in a part of London.
In its press release, the Westminster City Council said the Pret employee’s entrapment in the walk-in freezer, which was “typically set to run at around -18 degrees,” lasted greater than two hours before one other employee found her. The incident took place at a location in Victoria Coach Station.
A source at Pret said ice caused the door release contained in the fridge to malfunction.
During her entrapment, the employee tried to tear apart a “cardboard box containing chocolate croissants to make use of as cover from the ventilation blowing out cold air,” the local government said. She experienced symptoms of hypothermia and received medical care for a possible case of the condition, in line with the council.
![Pret a Manger](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000022498337.jpg?w=1024)
“We’re incredibly sorry for our colleague’s experience and understand how distressing this should have been,” a Pret spokesperson told FOX Business. “Now we have carried out a full review and have worked with the manufacturer to develop a solution to stop this from happening again.”
The spokesperson also said Pret “revisited all our existing systems and where appropriate, enhanced these processes” after the July 2021 incident. The corporate has “cooperated fully with Westminster City Council’s investigation.”
The Westminster City Council said, citing Pret’s reporting system, that “defective or frozen push buttons” on freezers had prompted a “variety of callouts” in a 19-month span prior to the July 2021 incident.
“We’re incredibly sorry for our colleague’s experience and understand how distressing this should have been,” a Pret spokesperson told FOX Business. “Now we have carried out a full review and have worked with the manufacturer to develop a solution to stop this from happening again.”
The spokesperson also said Pret “revisited all our existing systems and where appropriate, enhanced these processes” after the July 2021 incident. The corporate has “cooperated fully with Westminster City Council’s investigation.”
The Westminster City Council said, citing Pret’s reporting system, that “defective or frozen push buttons” on freezers had prompted a “variety of callouts” in a 19-month span prior to the July 2021 incident.
Pret has been majority-owned by JAB Holding since 2018.
1000’s of individuals work for the sandwich chain in the U.K., in line with Pret’s website. It also has employees in the U.S., Germany, India and other countries in which it operates.