The Superior Court of Castilla-La Mancha, a region in central Spain just a little bit to the southeast of Madrid, upheld a lower court’s decision that a grocery store employee was illegally fired for eating one croquette about to be thrown away after the store closed.
Anyone who’s worked in some form of the food service industry has seen firsthand the gross amounts of food waste generated by restaurants and the like. This is especially true of corporate-owned establishments that would rather burn the world to ashes than let employees take home unsold food that corporate says should be thrown in the trash even if it’s perfectly fine to eat.
That’s what happened here. For those unaware, a croquette is a delicious little snack believed to have originated in France. It eventually gained popularity in Spain and then throughout Latin America, thanks to Spain’s imperialism. You take some finely chopped meat or seafood, maybe some mashed veggies like potatoes, maybe even some rice, then turn it all into a paste that’s then breaded and fried.
One day, back in July 2023, after the store had closed, an employee of the Mercadona grocery store ate one croquette destined for the trash. Somehow some higher-up caught them in the act and told them to take a hike. They had broken the company’s policy that prohibits employees from eating any product in the store without having paid for it first, a rule that seems like it should be thrown out the window during closing time, particularly with pre-prepped items that are just going to be tossed out at the end of the day.
A little over a year later, a judge agreed. The Superior Court found that it was fairly common for workers to snack on “ready-to-eat” foods that will be thrown out at the end of the day. The court says that the most important fact in the case was that the employee didn’t eat an entire pack of croquettes, only one that was going to be thrown out anyway, so who gives a shit?
The lower court ruled that the grocery chain had to pay the employee €39,700 in lost wages. The higher court then added an additional punishment, forcing the grocery store to cough up the €600 the employee spent in legal fees.
That’s the end of the story, but I do want to let you know that AP ended with a line clarifying that the court documents did not indicate the flavor of the croquette in question like that matters. Like if it’d been a cod croquette it would’ve been fine but if it was a ham croquette, well, then the employee should have been tossed into the sun.
The post Court Sides With Supermarket Worker Fired for Eating a Croquette appeared first on VICE.
The post Court Sides With Supermarket Worker Fired for Eating a Croquette appeared first on VICE.
