Pret A Manger has found itself at the receiving end of a lot of criticism for a badge that was worn by one of its new female employees.

Pret A Manger is a hugely popular coffee and snack chain in the UK. When one of its customers was visiting a London branch recently they noticed that a new female employee was wearing the badge which read, "Kiss me, I'm new". The image was shared on Twitter and needless to say people were not impressed.

Come on @Pret, it’s kind of gross to make new female employees wear this badge pic.twitter.com/NQvrF9uyqd

— Bella (@bellamackie) November 13, 2017

As the badge looked very authentic and even had the company logo on it, people assumed it was common practice for new employees to wear the badge. The company has since responded to, firstly, ask where this had been seen and to further clarify that this is not something they hand out to new staff.

Hi Bella, we definitely don't ask our employees to wear badges with this message. Could you please let us know which shop it was so we can investigate? Thanks

— Pret (@Pret) November 13, 2017

It further explained that employees are able to order personalised badges themselves and so it was likely an issue within the one store alone, rather than company-wide.

Our teams can order badges with names on and can personalise them. Thanks for letting us know which shop it was and for making us aware of this in the first place. We will look into it.

— Pret (@Pret) November 13, 2017