Pret offers 100,000 free coffees for customers to donate
Howard Lake | 18 January 2016 | News
Food retailer Pret a Manger is offering 100,000 free coffees or teas from today for its customers to give away.
Its ‘Make Someone Smile’ initiative involves 100,000 branded cardboard sleeves that are being added to some drinks sold over the next month.
Clive Schlee, Pret CEO, explained:
“We often get feedback from customers about how our shop teams have brightened up their day. Our teams love being able to make customers smile, and we hope the recipients of our special coffee sleeves enjoy being able to pass that joy onto somebody else themselves.”
There is no charity partnership involved, but Pret’s campaign suggests that the free drinks can be given to a friend or a stranger. It’s likely therefore that some of these free warm drinks will be given to homeless people and Big Issue sellers.
Last year Schlee announced that he’d instituted an alternative to a customer loyalty programme. Instead of developing a standard buy-nine-coffees-and-the-tenth-is-free loyalty scheme, he invites staff to give away a certain number of free drinks and hot food each week. He leaves it to the staff to choose whom to select.
Look out for these coffee sleeves to make a random act of kindness
The promotion runs from today until 23:59 on 28 February 2016.
If you're given one of our 'Make Someone Smile' coffee sleeves, you can treat a friend to a free coffee (or tea)! pic.twitter.com/teMgvlnj0H
— Pret (@Pret) January 20, 2014
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.