logo
Drakes Supermarket boss John-Paul Drake's explosive tirade against racial abuse directed at junior employee

Drakes Supermarket boss John-Paul Drake's explosive tirade against racial abuse directed at junior employee

West Australian21-05-2025

A supermarket boss has called out trolls who directed racially abusive comments at a junior employee featured in a social media post for the store.
Drakes Supermarket created a post on its Facebook page to promote a competition, but it was filled with offensive comments and memes from people attacking the young staff member.
Drakes Supermarket director John-Paul Drake fired back at the trolls in an open message to the people who hid behind a keyboard to hurt his team with hateful, rude and racist comments.
In a statement posted to his Instagram page on Monday, Mr Drake did not hold back when he told the people responsible for the disgusting comments to 'f**k off'.
'This is completely unacceptable,' he said in the statement.
'Drakes is about people.
'Drakes is here to serve everyone in our community … if you treat others with respect, you're welcome in our stores.
'If that makes you uncomfortable, you're free to shop somewhere else. That's your choice.
'But don't come into our stores or onto our pages and attack my team, who turn up everyday to serve their communities with pride.
'Racism has no place in our society. And you have no place in our stores.'
Mr Drake told The Advertiser that he could not believe in a country that was built on multiculturalism, he had to call out this extremely shameful behaviour.
He said there was absolutely no excuse or place for racism in any form and even less so when it was directed at his team.
'Everyone should feel comfortable in calling out this kind of behaviour,' he said.
'No one should feel comfortable when they see or read it.
'The customer might always come first, but you lose the right to be a customer when you abuse my team.
'My people are my biggest asset, and I have no qualms standing up for them and for what is right.'
Many people have supported the supermarket boss for standing up for his employee.
'Well done JP for standing up to faceless gutless trolls. Hold your head high young fella,' one person commented.
'Amazing young lad, amazing supermarket, awesome boss,' a customer said.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

‘Betrayal': She built a cult baby business, then RFK Jr came calling
‘Betrayal': She built a cult baby business, then RFK Jr came calling

Sydney Morning Herald

time5 hours ago

  • Sydney Morning Herald

‘Betrayal': She built a cult baby business, then RFK Jr came calling

It's a point of tension that tends to bubble up during motherhood in particular, when many parents are trying to 'figure things out on their own' and are increasingly sceptical of government institutions, said Sara Petersen, the author of Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture. Focusing on their child's diet and lifestyle can create 'an illusion of control' over their wellbeing. This can become a gateway of sorts into Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again movement. It isn't, in other words, a coincidence that the movement is fuelled by so-called 'crunchy' mothers. The same mothers might also be Bobbie's target customer. Complicity, or a front seat? Modi, 39, started the Bobbie brand in 2018, creating infant formula that is marketed as free from corn syrup, palm oil and other ultra-processed ingredients that have been commonplace in US formula brands. She has also thrown the brand's weight behind policies and non-profits focused on equity in maternal health, reproductive health and access to paid parental leave. This marketing strategy has differentiated Bobbie from other formula brands and generated a cult-like following. Millennial parents seem especially interested in its nutritional value and are perhaps also drawn to its social media-ready packaging, with its soft colour palette and slogans such as, 'I like it shaken, not stirred'. Modi, a mother of four, is a canny marketer, of both herself and her business. She was named one of Time's women of the year in February and one of Marie Claire's power moms in May. The company reached $US100 million ($156 million) in revenue in 2023 – making it the third-largest formula manufacturer in the United States, holding 4 per cent of that market – and is sold at Target and Whole Foods. A contingent of Bobbie's customers sees an about face in Modi's alignment with Kennedy, a man who has been accused by critics of undermining established science and promoting public health policies that they say put children's lives at risk. 'I'm genuinely sad about this,' one follower wrote on the Instagram post of Modi with Kennedy. Another customer, Allison Rhone, 43, a social media manager at a non-profit, noted that the Instagram caption lacked any context about what she called the 'craziness' of much of Kennedy's agenda. 'That to me is complicity because it makes it all seem normal,' she said. Meghan Novisky, 41, a Bobbie customer and a criminology professor at Cleveland State University, said: 'It almost felt like a betrayal; I felt shocked to see that. It just shatters my trust in them.' In interviews, others vowed never to use or recommend Bobbie again. (The company said it hadn't seen a dip in subscriptions.) But 'what's the potential outcome of not being in that room?' Modi said in an interview. 'Two things can be true at the same time,' she said. 'I don't agree with many of the things that this current administration is doing. It's very hard to watch the dismantling of really important agencies and, specifically within my world, parts of the FDA.' But, she said, she saw value in being in the room with a decision-maker like Kennedy. A 'naive' plan Modi moved from the west coast of Ireland to California for a job at Google in 2006. She planned to stay in the United States for a year or two before moving back to Ireland. Instead, she ended up climbing the corporate ladder and, in 2011, became director of hospitality at Airbnb. She assumed that she would breastfeed her first child, born in 2016, but her plans were upended by a nasty bout of mastitis, an infection of the breast. With a raging fever and a crying five-day-old infant, she walked into a Walgreens at 11pm. 'What am I picking up? What's the right thing to feed my baby?' she said of the thoughts that were racing through her mind then. 'No idea.' There were few formula brand options, and the ingredient lists on the cans were incomprehensible. She walked out that night with a pack of Similac, manufactured by Abbott, and the germ of an idea. Loading In any spare minute, Modi looked up ingredients, researched infant nutritional science and examined how the existing formula brands functioned. She asked her mother to smuggle in cans of European brands for her daughter, which, at the time, were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration to be sold in the US (an increasingly common practice for parents). The European Commission regulates formula differently, said Dr Bridget Young, a professor of paediatrics and a breastfeeding researcher at the University of Rochester. Europe, for example, 'sets limits on pesticide residues that can be in formula. We don't do that here,' she said. 'You can't, in Europe, use sucrose or table sugar,' she said. 'In the US, we don't regulate that.' Loading Europe also sets different limits for ingredients like DHA (a fatty acid believed to be essential for brain and eye development) and iron. Still, she added, the approaches to making formulas around the world are similar, and the small differences between them are marketed as large gulfs. Formulas are also among 'the safest foods made in the US', Young said. 'There's no perfect formula; there's no poison formula.' Similac, for instance – which Modi weaned her daughter off in favour of the imports – is fed to babies in hospitals, including in the neonatal intensive care unit wards. When, in December 2017, Modi found out she was pregnant again, she quit her job and decided to start Bobbie. 'In my mind,' she said, 'I'm like, 'I got nine months, I will have a better infant formula in the market before he comes.' ' That, she said, was incredibly 'naive'. For starters, there were the Goliaths of the market: the four manufacturers – Abbott, Mead Johnson (acquired by Reckitt), Nestle and Perrigo – which together controlled 97 per cent of the market in 2022. Infant formula is also highly regulated, presenting any new entrant with a labyrinth of hoops to jump through. And, infant formula being about as aspirational as antacid or Band-Aids, there were few eager investors. Most, many of whom were male, would also ask something to the effect of, ' 'Well, what are you planning to do with this?' And point to my very visible pregnant belly,' she said. By the time Modi was 8½ months pregnant, in 2018, she had pitched the idea of a 'European-style' formula to 64 investors. One gave her $US2.4 million in funding eight days before her second child arrived. It would be three more years before she would bring an FDA-approved product to market. Crises and opportunities In 2022, supply chain disruptions and a bacterial outbreak that temporarily closed Similac's plant set off a harrowing nationwide infant formula shortage. Since the brand's inception, Bobbie products had been sold online through a subscription model and were manufactured at a contract facility that also works with other smaller brands. During the shortage, when US store shelves sat bare, parents turned to Bobbie formula, creating a surge in demand that outpaced production at the contract facility. The company had to stop accepting new customers. Loading Modi bought a manufacturing facility in Ohio that began making Bobbie formula last year, allowing it to triple supply. HHS now presents Modi with another opportunity: to fulfil her long-standing goals of updating infant nutrition standards. Kennedy's MAHA agenda has many of the same talking points Modi has been espousing since 2018 – that European formulas are healthier, corn syrup in formula is a villain and regulators need to increase testing of heavy metals that have been detected in formulas made in the US. At the same time, the Trump administration has fired thousands of federal public health workers and researchers, including a committee that tracks bacterial outbreaks in infant formula. As head of the FDA division that regulates formula, Kennedy has named Kyle Diamantas, a corporate lawyer who defended Abbott in a lawsuit claiming that one of its formulas increased the risk of a deadly condition in infants. (Abbott, which lost the case, was ordered to pay $US495 million in damages.) Paediatricians worry too that, under these circumstances, a review of nutrition standards could easily veer into MAHA obsessions, like seed oils (which contain fatty acids that are essential for infant development), instead of focusing on science. Loading For Rhone, part of the appeal of Bobbie was that it was marketed as an outsider to the infant formula industry, putting it in a position to criticise the FDA and other agencies. 'I just need to know that you're going to be an actual advocate in there and that you're not just going to nod your head to whatever they're saying,' Rhone said. But to Modi, infant nutrition is a nonpartisan issue. 'And if what it takes to update nutritional standards is a certain administration, certain voices to create that change, I'm all here for it.'

‘Betrayal': She built a cult baby business, then RFK Jr came calling
‘Betrayal': She built a cult baby business, then RFK Jr came calling

The Age

time5 hours ago

  • The Age

‘Betrayal': She built a cult baby business, then RFK Jr came calling

It's a point of tension that tends to bubble up during motherhood in particular, when many parents are trying to 'figure things out on their own' and are increasingly sceptical of government institutions, said Sara Petersen, the author of Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture. Focusing on their child's diet and lifestyle can create 'an illusion of control' over their wellbeing. This can become a gateway of sorts into Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again movement. It isn't, in other words, a coincidence that the movement is fuelled by so-called 'crunchy' mothers. The same mothers might also be Bobbie's target customer. Complicity, or a front seat? Modi, 39, started the Bobbie brand in 2018, creating infant formula that is marketed as free from corn syrup, palm oil and other ultra-processed ingredients that have been commonplace in US formula brands. She has also thrown the brand's weight behind policies and non-profits focused on equity in maternal health, reproductive health and access to paid parental leave. This marketing strategy has differentiated Bobbie from other formula brands and generated a cult-like following. Millennial parents seem especially interested in its nutritional value and are perhaps also drawn to its social media-ready packaging, with its soft colour palette and slogans such as, 'I like it shaken, not stirred'. Modi, a mother of four, is a canny marketer, of both herself and her business. She was named one of Time's women of the year in February and one of Marie Claire's power moms in May. The company reached $US100 million ($156 million) in revenue in 2023 – making it the third-largest formula manufacturer in the United States, holding 4 per cent of that market – and is sold at Target and Whole Foods. A contingent of Bobbie's customers sees an about face in Modi's alignment with Kennedy, a man who has been accused by critics of undermining established science and promoting public health policies that they say put children's lives at risk. 'I'm genuinely sad about this,' one follower wrote on the Instagram post of Modi with Kennedy. Another customer, Allison Rhone, 43, a social media manager at a non-profit, noted that the Instagram caption lacked any context about what she called the 'craziness' of much of Kennedy's agenda. 'That to me is complicity because it makes it all seem normal,' she said. Meghan Novisky, 41, a Bobbie customer and a criminology professor at Cleveland State University, said: 'It almost felt like a betrayal; I felt shocked to see that. It just shatters my trust in them.' In interviews, others vowed never to use or recommend Bobbie again. (The company said it hadn't seen a dip in subscriptions.) But 'what's the potential outcome of not being in that room?' Modi said in an interview. 'Two things can be true at the same time,' she said. 'I don't agree with many of the things that this current administration is doing. It's very hard to watch the dismantling of really important agencies and, specifically within my world, parts of the FDA.' But, she said, she saw value in being in the room with a decision-maker like Kennedy. A 'naive' plan Modi moved from the west coast of Ireland to California for a job at Google in 2006. She planned to stay in the United States for a year or two before moving back to Ireland. Instead, she ended up climbing the corporate ladder and, in 2011, became director of hospitality at Airbnb. She assumed that she would breastfeed her first child, born in 2016, but her plans were upended by a nasty bout of mastitis, an infection of the breast. With a raging fever and a crying five-day-old infant, she walked into a Walgreens at 11pm. 'What am I picking up? What's the right thing to feed my baby?' she said of the thoughts that were racing through her mind then. 'No idea.' There were few formula brand options, and the ingredient lists on the cans were incomprehensible. She walked out that night with a pack of Similac, manufactured by Abbott, and the germ of an idea. Loading In any spare minute, Modi looked up ingredients, researched infant nutritional science and examined how the existing formula brands functioned. She asked her mother to smuggle in cans of European brands for her daughter, which, at the time, were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration to be sold in the US (an increasingly common practice for parents). The European Commission regulates formula differently, said Dr Bridget Young, a professor of paediatrics and a breastfeeding researcher at the University of Rochester. Europe, for example, 'sets limits on pesticide residues that can be in formula. We don't do that here,' she said. 'You can't, in Europe, use sucrose or table sugar,' she said. 'In the US, we don't regulate that.' Loading Europe also sets different limits for ingredients like DHA (a fatty acid believed to be essential for brain and eye development) and iron. Still, she added, the approaches to making formulas around the world are similar, and the small differences between them are marketed as large gulfs. Formulas are also among 'the safest foods made in the US', Young said. 'There's no perfect formula; there's no poison formula.' Similac, for instance – which Modi weaned her daughter off in favour of the imports – is fed to babies in hospitals, including in the neonatal intensive care unit wards. When, in December 2017, Modi found out she was pregnant again, she quit her job and decided to start Bobbie. 'In my mind,' she said, 'I'm like, 'I got nine months, I will have a better infant formula in the market before he comes.' ' That, she said, was incredibly 'naive'. For starters, there were the Goliaths of the market: the four manufacturers – Abbott, Mead Johnson (acquired by Reckitt), Nestle and Perrigo – which together controlled 97 per cent of the market in 2022. Infant formula is also highly regulated, presenting any new entrant with a labyrinth of hoops to jump through. And, infant formula being about as aspirational as antacid or Band-Aids, there were few eager investors. Most, many of whom were male, would also ask something to the effect of, ' 'Well, what are you planning to do with this?' And point to my very visible pregnant belly,' she said. By the time Modi was 8½ months pregnant, in 2018, she had pitched the idea of a 'European-style' formula to 64 investors. One gave her $US2.4 million in funding eight days before her second child arrived. It would be three more years before she would bring an FDA-approved product to market. Crises and opportunities In 2022, supply chain disruptions and a bacterial outbreak that temporarily closed Similac's plant set off a harrowing nationwide infant formula shortage. Since the brand's inception, Bobbie products had been sold online through a subscription model and were manufactured at a contract facility that also works with other smaller brands. During the shortage, when US store shelves sat bare, parents turned to Bobbie formula, creating a surge in demand that outpaced production at the contract facility. The company had to stop accepting new customers. Loading Modi bought a manufacturing facility in Ohio that began making Bobbie formula last year, allowing it to triple supply. HHS now presents Modi with another opportunity: to fulfil her long-standing goals of updating infant nutrition standards. Kennedy's MAHA agenda has many of the same talking points Modi has been espousing since 2018 – that European formulas are healthier, corn syrup in formula is a villain and regulators need to increase testing of heavy metals that have been detected in formulas made in the US. At the same time, the Trump administration has fired thousands of federal public health workers and researchers, including a committee that tracks bacterial outbreaks in infant formula. As head of the FDA division that regulates formula, Kennedy has named Kyle Diamantas, a corporate lawyer who defended Abbott in a lawsuit claiming that one of its formulas increased the risk of a deadly condition in infants. (Abbott, which lost the case, was ordered to pay $US495 million in damages.) Paediatricians worry too that, under these circumstances, a review of nutrition standards could easily veer into MAHA obsessions, like seed oils (which contain fatty acids that are essential for infant development), instead of focusing on science. Loading For Rhone, part of the appeal of Bobbie was that it was marketed as an outsider to the infant formula industry, putting it in a position to criticise the FDA and other agencies. 'I just need to know that you're going to be an actual advocate in there and that you're not just going to nod your head to whatever they're saying,' Rhone said. But to Modi, infant nutrition is a nonpartisan issue. 'And if what it takes to update nutritional standards is a certain administration, certain voices to create that change, I'm all here for it.'

Perth dentist reveals side hustle making custom grillz
Perth dentist reveals side hustle making custom grillz

Perth Now

time2 days ago

  • Perth Now

Perth dentist reveals side hustle making custom grillz

An Inglewood-based dentist has built a unique side hustle in creating custom dental grillz, blending his professional background in clinical dentistry with his strong passion for hip-hop culture. Dr Maheer Shah, also known as Dr Grillz, said his early obsession with Grand Theft Auto set the stage for his unexpected career twist. A backstage encounter with some DJs wearing grillz inspired him to begin experimenting with making them himself. Your local paper, whenever you want it. 'They said you have to go to America to get them,' he said. 'I was like 'I'm a dentist' and then my friends were like 'you should get into grillz' and that was 10 years ago.' Dr Grillz said people had said they had no idea his service was in their 'backyard', with some travelling as far as South Korea to get the service. 'There was no one doing it here. I couldn't even find anyone to make them for me,' he said. Dr Grillz. Credit: Tom 'I started taking moulds of myself and just sending them to techs locally and overseas to see what they could do.' Dr Grillz said he had faced scepticism from some dental surgeries which did not see grillz as a part of dentistry. 'Some of the surgeries I worked at didn't really gel with it. They'd say 'this isn't dentistry',' he said. 'But to me, dentistry is about expression, feeling your best and a grill is a part of that. 'I still do 90 per cent general dentistry but smile makeovers are my thing.' Dr Grillz says grillz can make girls look more edgy. Credit: Ross Swanborough / The West Australian He emphasised the importance of health in his grillz, ensuring that they don't damage the teeth or gums. 'I'm still a dentist first and one of our big values with Dr Grillz is health,' he said. 'I really want to do this in a way that's good for your health, and not ruin your teeth or gum because that's like I'm failing at my main job.' Dr Grillz said a lot of people dreaded going to the dentist. 'You don't really get much positive reactions but with this kind of work you build really tight bonds, you become homies,' he said. 'When you get it done they feel like a million dollars. So that just that's so fulfilling compared to pulling out wisdom teeth; no one gets excited for that.' Dr Grillz said grillz were often misinterpreted but they had been around for longer than people think. Diamond implants are available. Credit: Ross Swanborough / The West Australian 'It's not just gangsters; grillz have existed for thousands of years. Mayans, royalty, Egyptians .. .people always wanted gold in their teeth,' he said. Dr Grillz said for the first eight years, almost all his work came through Instagram. 'People would DM me and I'd literally drive to their house and do a mold there because I didn't have a proper office,' Dr Grillz said. Dr Grillz plans to open up his own office which will merge clinical dentistry with the creative. Grillz have surged in popularity recently, especially among women, and he's now creating permanent diamond tooth implants — one of which he believes may be the first of its kind globally. His services range from $200 for a single temporary silver tooth all the way to $10,000 for diamond implants. 'Grillz are the ultimate accessory. The next evolution of self-expression after tattoos.' Dr Grillz said.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store