I've been working at my present job for 5 years now, and I maintain very good relationship with my colleagues.
Last week I accidentally took someone else's catered lunch, thinking it was left-overs.
This week the company sent an internal email because they received complaints of people getting their lunch stolen from the fridge. They said some generic stuff as a warning, and then specifically mentioned that caterer's boxes are not to be taken from the fridge because they can be reserved for someone else.
I really want to come forward and apologise, offering to pay back the caterer's fee.
Or would it be better to not mention it, since they don't know who did it?
What would be the correct way to approach things from your perspective?
Edit :
Hi everyone! I would like to thanks all for your answers and your help! I came out clean and was honest with both HR and my boss.
Guess what? I wasn't the culprit and the e-mail wasn't entirely targeted toward me. We had multiple people in the past few weeks get their entire lunchbox stolen.
The caterer's plates that i took were in fact meant to be given away later that day, but HR thought they got stolen by the same person too, hince the aforementionned e-mail.
Both HR and my boss accepted my apologies and the fact that i was honest, despite it being a none-issue.
Crisis averted!