You’re probably familiar with the Jimmy John’s sandwich restaurants, but have you heard about the criticism the company and its founder have faced?
First, the company was criticized for the way it treated its employees. According to media reports, workers were asked to sign an agreement that prevented them from working at a competing sandwich restaurant within a radius of about 3 miles of a Jimmy John’s restaurant. The company later agreed to stop using these agreements.
However, this is not the main thing you are going to find out in this post.
The part that upset many customers is related to how the company’s founder spent some of his free time and money.
The founder, Jimmy John Liautaud, went on big-game hunting trips in Africa.
Photos from these trips may be upsetting for some readers.
According to a report by Business Insider, photos that circulated online showed him posing with animals he had hunted for sport, including a rhino, a leopard, an elephant and a zebra.
Trophy hunting of this kind is legal in some countries when the hunter buys a permit, and such permits can cost very large sums of money.
The photos caused such a strong reaction partly because of the wider problem of poaching. Researchers estimate that around 100,000 African elephants were lost to poachers in just three years, between 2010 and 2012.
Illegal poaching for ivory is a major reason why elephant numbers have fallen so sharply. It is separate from licensed hunting, but for many people both raise the same concern about the future of these animals.
Conservation groups have warned that, if poaching continues at this pace, African elephants could disappear from parts of the continent.
For this reason, many animal lovers were unhappy to learn that the founder of a popular restaurant chain had spent money on hunting an elephant.
The following video shows some images from his safari trips in Africa. Surprising, isn’t it? Some customers said they would stop eating there after seeing them, while others feel that a founder’s hobbies have nothing to do with the sandwiches. The choice is yours.