Korean owners of Paris Baguette lose billions by taking on the world
Critics also said that the mixing machine should have been operated by at least two people.
The company’s response to the incident as well as the alleged safety lapses have sparked nationwide boycotts and protests in South Korea against Paris Baguette and its parent company SPC Group.SPC Group is a food conglomerate that owns Paris Baguette and operates large global brands in the country, including Dunkin’ Donuts, Egg Slut, Shake Shack and Baskin Robbins.
Anger towards the company was incited even further after it was revealed that representatives tried to negotiate a settlement with the deceased employee’s family on the night of her funeral.
The victim’s mother said that company representatives had offered a settlement in exchange for not pressing any charges, Asian-American website Next Shark reported.
The woman, however, refused and reportedly engaged a lawyer the next day.
The bakery was also slammed for sending bread for the funeral’s guests, which an SPC Group spokesperson later explained was part of a care package given when an employee or their family member dies.
The victim’s mother told South Korean broadcaster MBC: “How can they send bread from the place where she died? Does that make any sense?”
Online users in South Korea lambasted the company for the perceived insensitive gesture.
“She was killed at a bread factory. Even the thought of bread would cause the family sadness,” one user wrote. ‘Why would they send the family bread? Are they psychopaths?”
Another person commented: “I’m at a loss for words. I can’t believe they disrespected the deceased as if it’s nothing. Did they not think they would hurt the family with this gesture?”
Just a week before the incident, an SPC employee’s hand was caught in a production line machine, the Korea Times reported. However, the company did not send the worker to the hospital for treatment because the person was a temporary employee on a three-month contract.
Following news of the incident, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on October 16 ordered an inquiry into the details of the employee’s death.
A day later, SPC Group’s chairman Huh Young-in publicly apologised at a press conference, admitting that making employees work at the accident site was wrong and “inexcusable”.
South Korean students slammed for suing cleaners over ‘noisy’ protests
The group also pledged to invest 100 billion won (US$70.2 million) to improve workplace safety over the next three years.
Despite the public apology, labour unionists and members of the public banded together on October 20 to stage a memorial ceremony in front of the company’s headquarters. One-person protests were also held in front of 1,000 Paris Baguette stores in the country.
Calls to boycott the bakery chain have spread beyond South Korean shores, too.
On October 20, France’s General Confederation of Labour paid tribute to the victim by holding a demonstration in front of a Paris Baguette outlet in Paris.
Twitter users have also been sharing images of maps detailing the locations of Paris Baguette stores in their countries and urging others to stop patronising them.
A number of people from areas in the United States such as New York City, Dallas, Los Angeles and Philadelphia have pledged to boycott their local stores.
Paris Baguette has more than 4,000 outlets around the world.
