A doughnut shop, angry vegans, and viral internet backlash. Sounds like the makings of a Portlandia sketch, right?
Nope, this one happened IRL.
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Pip’s Original, a doughnut shop in the Oregon city, felt the wrath of internet vegans recently after it posted a job description for a barista and shop assistant on July 21.
While those applying to the position could look forward to competitive pay and sociable working hours, there’s a snag for any aspiring doughnut shop workers living an animal-free lifestyle. According to Pip’s job description, you can’t apply.
Yep, alongside requesting basic barista skills and relevant work experience, Pip’s asks that vegans and vegetarians need not submit an application.
The job posting states: “No non-medical, non-religious dietary restrictions that would stop you from tasting, accurately representing our food, and maintaining quality control to maintain the highest standards of food safety and excellence. We serve products with meat (including bacon), nuts, diary [sic] and our doughnuts contain wheat gluten.”
So that’s bye bye for coeliacs and the lactose intolerant, too.
Unsurprisingly, the internet hit back hard at Pip’s. Among the rave reviews for the shop’s doughnuts, people started posting to the shop’s Facebook page with comments including: “Won’t return now that I know you discriminate against vegetarians in your hiring practices! We are good enough to buy your products, in my case near daily, but not okay to work there” and “My neighbor [sic] found out that you won’t hire him to to him choosing to eat cruelty free. We will no longer support your business.”
Despite these comments and claiming in a Facebook post that Pip’s had also received “hateful emails,” owner Nate Snell stood by his decision not to employ those with restricted diets.
He used his Facebook post to defend the right to choose employees based on what they can eat, saying that it was not discrimination but common sense: “As a small, locally owned business we feel that voluntary lifestyle … dietary restrictions could seriously compromise decisions to assure food quality and safety.”
Snell added that vegans and veggies can still apply for the position.
He wrote: “If you’re truly interested in the position and you meet all of the other requirements and yet you have a voluntary dietary restriction, send us an email and explain how it would look if you worked for us and what type of workaround you would propose.”
There’s hope for all you vegan doughnut servers yet.
