"If this is what happens at Starbucks – a supposedly progressive company – what happens in notoriously shitty companies?" Asks Walter, a former American employee of the famous firm.
Walter Chaw, freelance journalist and American author, worked for a time as an employee at Starbucks. He tells on Twitter how he was shocked by what he observed there on a daily basis: waste, lack of confidence, but also, consideration towards employees, mistreatment … According to him, the Starbucks business would operate like all major fast food chains, despite "green" marketing. In 2016, then in 2020, the company announced new standards in order to avoid unnecessary expenditure on water, reduce the use of single-use cups … But for Walter Chaw, the reality is quite different.
In a viral Twitter thread posted on January 17, 2021, the ex-employee says that the company prefers to waste food rather than give it away, in order to defend its economic model at all costs. All this, despite the commitments that Starbucks, and the big fast food chains in general, say they make, without sticking to them. A frightening testimony.
"Giving away unsold items is stealing the business"
“At Starbucks, we were told to throw out all the sandwiches, salads and ready-made meals at the end of the day: 'No, you can't take them home. No, you can't donate them. Throw them away. . We will consider this to be theft and you will be kicked out if you don't throw them out. '"
"If we made a mistake and ordered more milk than what the fridges can hold, the delivery drivers would be responsible for throwing it out. We can't deliver it anywhere else or bring it back to the warehouse. Right in the sink. . The waste generation was and remains immense. Consider that rules like this are designed to test whether the employee is morally 'well conditioned'. You follow them to keep your job, and then you engage in a terrible waste. If you ignore them and distribute the food, you are robbing the business. …
In most service industries, the only really controllable costs are labor and the cost of goods. This is where you benefit from. Labor wages must be increased, but the cost of goods remains static? The company's response will be: 'I will employ half as many people to do the same amount of work. "Https://www.aufeminin.com/"
The golden rule is that whoever has the money sets the rules – more than that, he fabricates the moral universe in which a company's strategies trump basic human decency. The moral decay of our society takes root in this culture. (…)
Starbucks, McCafé and all the rest
"If this is what happens at Starbucks – a supposedly 'progressive' company – what happens with notoriously shitty companies? Every year, we employees volunteered at food banks. and the whole time I was there, I thought, “I threw away 90 kilos of food last week.” It's the same logic in most restaurants: if you're an employee and you mess up an order, it goes in the trash. Why? We suspect you: what if you made a mistake on purpose to be able to bring food home? Throw that order in the trash, thief! "
In his thread, the journalist insists on the logic in which the employee finds himself trapped. “What is the cost of (s) a complicity?” He asks. For him, it is poverty that makes this iniquitous system possible: a precarious or poor person will be forced to accept the rules and will then become a link in the great chain of waste.
And with us, are we really struggling with the problem?
In France, the law obliges businesses to donate their unsold food to associations since 2016. However, restaurants are not affected by this obligation. In addition, fast food restaurants are particularly affected by food waste: it is thus considered that a company like McDonald's would waste about 20% of the food produced in the kitchen, according to the association Youth For Climate. Walter Chaw's observation is therefore sadly valid on our side of the Atlantic.