Email #34: Saluting a Company That Gets It (8/12/16)

During a week where Delta Airlines has provided no logical explanation as to why their airline completely shut down for more than a full day and canceled thousands of flights, I thought this the right time to salute a company that gets it.

That company is Pret A Manger. Their slogan?

Made today. Gone today.

They explain on their homepage:

“Fresh food shouldn’t have a nightlife. But we also think throwing leftovers in the garbage at the end of the day is just madness. So we donate them to charity instead.”

Conservative estimates say American restaurants, grocery stores…etc. waste around $165 billion in food each year.

That’s $3 billion a week.

Half a billion a day!

Every hour, every single hour, Americans toss $200 million of food into the trash.

Here is a company, Pret A Manger, that said enough is enough. They’re doing what’s right in a world where so few seem to be doing so. The organizations they have partnered with include City Harvest, Boston Rescue Mission, Rescuing Leftover Cuisine and New England Center and Home for Veterans. They are the good guys.

1. It makes sense.
2. It’s the right thing to do.

In 2015 we launched Everybody Eats, our campaign to alleviate hunger. Over the course of our day spent in each of New York City’s five boroughs we saw first hand the power a single meal can have. The looks on the faces of families at Project Hospitality in Staten Island and seniors at MMCC in the Bronx reflected the overwhelming joy they felt knowing somebody cared about their well-being.

This fall, Areena will expand Everybody Eats in the New York area as we prepare to spread the campaign across the country in 2017.

The food is there. No one in this country should go a day without it.

Art Gurwitz