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Meta fired about 20 staff members in Los Angeles for using their $25 meal credits to purchase household items including acne pads, wine glasses and laundry detergent.

The terminations took place last week, just days before the $1.5 trillion social media company separately began restructuring certain teams across WhatsApp, Instagram and Reality Labs, its augmented and virtual reality business, on Tuesday.

The revamp included cutting some staff and moving others, several people familiar with the decisions said, a sign that CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent efficiency drive is still underway.

Like most major tech companies, Meta offers free food as a perk to employees based in its sprawling Silicon Valley headquarters. For example, employees of smaller offices without a canteen are offered Uber Eats or Grubhub credits for delivering food to the office.

Staff will be paid a per diem of $20 for breakfast, $25 for lunch and $25 for dinner, with meal credits issued in $25 increments.

Those fired were believed to have abused the food credit system over a long period of time, a person familiar with the matter said. Some had pooled their money, they said, while others received meals to take home, even though the funds were intended for the office.

Those who only occasionally violated company rules were reprimanded but not fired, the person added.

In a post on anonymous messaging platform Blind, seen by the Financial Times, a former Meta employee wrote that they had used $25 credit on items including toothpaste and tea from pharmacy Rite Aid, adding: “On days when I wouldn’t eat in the office, for example if my husband was cooking or if I was having dinner with friends, I thought I shouldn’t waste the dinner credit.’

The person, who indicated they had a salary of about $400,000 at Meta and worked “nights (and) weekends,” wrote that they admitted to supervision when human resources investigated the practice before later being unexpectedly fired. “It was almost surreal that this happened,” the person wrote.

Blind verifies that a user works for a particular company, but does not require them to reveal their identity.

Meta declined to comment on the layoffs.

However, the company said of the wider layoffs: “Today, a few teams at Meta are making changes to ensure resources are aligned with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy.”

It added: “This includes moving some teams to different locations, and moving some employees to different roles. In situations like these where a role is eliminated, we work hard to find other options for affected employees.”

Zuckerberg announced about 21,000 job cuts in two rounds of layoffs in 2022 and 2023, calling the latter a “year of efficiency.”

He also canceled low-priority projects in an effort to boost sluggish growth and ease investor concerns about his costly bet on the metaverse.

Wall Street has welcomed the cuts, along with a renewed focus on artificial intelligence. The company’s shares are now trading around an all-time high of $577 each.