Pret a Manger facts for kids
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Inside Pret a Manger, Victoria, London
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| Private | |
| Industry | Fast casual restaurant |
| Founded | 1983 |
| Founder | Julian Metcalfe & Sinclair Beecham |
| Headquarters | , |
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Number of locations
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450+ |
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Area served
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United Kingdom, United States, Hong Kong, China, France, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, Denmark, United Arab Emirates, and Singapore |
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Key people
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Pano Christou (CEO) |
| Products | Sandwiches, salads, sushi, soups, coffees and snacks |
| Revenue |  £776 Million (2016) |
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Operating income
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£93 Million (2016) |
| Owner | JAB Holding Company |
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Number of employees
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12,000 (2018) |
Pret a Manger /ˈprɛt ə ˈmɒ̃ʒeɪ/ (prêt à manger is French for ready to eat) is an international sandwich shop franchise chain based in the United Kingdom, popularly referred to as Pret, founded in 1983. As of 2021 Pret had over 460 shops in the UK, 317 of them in London, reducing to 311 in 2022.
Contents
History
First Pret a Manger restaurant
Jeffrey Hyman founded the first Pret a Manger in London on 21 October 1983. The first Pret a Manger shop opened in Hampstead, London, in 1984. The name Prêt à Manger (French pronunciation: [pʁɛt‿a mɑ̃ʒe], ready to eat ) was based on prêt-à-porter, French for "ready-to-wear" clothing.
Opening in June 1983, the company traded at 58 Hampstead High Street for 18 months at which time takings had dropped to below break-even point and the company went into liquidation. The name and visual branding was purchased from the company liquidator David Rubin by college friends Sinclair Beecham and Julian Metcalfe.
Pret a Manger, 1986 onwards
Beecham and Metcalfe started a new operation, using the Pret a Manger name purchased from the former company's liquidator. They opened their first Pret a Manger in July 1986, located at 75b Victoria Street in London. Beecham and Metcalfe met while studying at university.
The pair developed the chain's menu of handmade natural food, prepared in shop kitchens, and as of 2017[update] remained significant shareholders in the company.
In 1995, Metcalfe and Beecham set up the Pret Foundation Trust with the aim of alleviating poverty in the UK. The Trust receives donations from the sale of products and collection boxes in shops. The donations fund Pret's "Charity Run" vans, which deliver unsold food to homeless shelters at the end of each day.
The first shop outside of London was opened on Broad Street, New York, in 2000. In 2016, there were 74 Pret shops in the United States.
In 2001, McDonald's bought a 33% non-controlling stake in the company, which they sold in 2008 to the private equity firm Bridgepoint Capital.
The company opened its first shop in France in 2012 and had a total of 19 shops in France in 2016.
In June 2016, after running an online poll, Pret a Manger opened a vegan and vegetarian branch in Soho, London, under a new brand name, Veggie Pret, changing its Twitter page for the launch from burgundy to green. "We opened our Veggie Pret pop up as an experiment," Pret's group chief executive at the time Clive Schlee wrote in a blog post, "never imagining it would be around for more than a month. We ended up making it permanent..."
In 2016, Pret's group sales were £776 million.
In April 2017, the company opened its second Veggie Pret in Shoreditch, East London.
In September 2018, JAB Holding Company acquired Pret a Manger from Bridgepoint.
In May 2019, Pret bought rival chain Eat for an undisclosed sum, originally planning to convert many branches into Veggie Pret shops.
On 27 August 2020, during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the UK, the company announced that it would cut 2,890 jobs from its UK workforce (more than a third of the current employees). The primary reason given was a severe downturn in trade. Most jobs would be lost from shops, with 90 roles lost in the company support centre.
In April 2022, the company announced plans to enter the Irish market, opening 20 outlets and creating 500 jobs.
Restaurants
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The company emphasises the use of natural ingredients and advertises that its sandwiches are made on the day of purchase in a kitchen at each location (with the stated exception of a few small outlets). Food left unsold at the end of the day is collected by charities. Sandwiches are packaged in paperboard rather than sealed plastic. 67% of its trade is in London, where around three-quarters of its stores are located. Locations include:
- United Kingdom
- United Arab Emirates: 1 outlet, as of March 2016. It opened on 16 March 2016 at Dubai International Airport's new Concourse D.
- United States
- Hong Kong
- China
- Singapore
- Belgium
- France
- Denmark: 3 at Copenhagen Airport in Terminal 3, Terminal 2 and Gate A
- Germany: 1 at Berlin Hauptbahnhof and 1 in Frankfurt at Fressgass (Große Bockenheimer Strasse 46)
- Switzerland: 3 at Zurich Airport and 1 at Geneva Cornavin railway station
- Ireland (2022)
- India (2022)
- Canada (2022): Toronto, Vancouver
- Kuwait (2022): 1 at Al Hamra Tower, Sharq
Organisation
In 1998, the company employed 1,400 people, of whom 19% were from the UK and 60% were from other European Union countries, mainly in Eastern Europe. Pret a Manger employs 1 in every 14 applicants. Applicants go on a one-day experience day at a shop and their success is determined by votes from the staff members. Many managers and senior executives have come from within the company.
The organisational structure of Pret a Manger is divided between its stores and the main offices. The London head office is the hub for the UK stores, while the office in New York City is the hub for the American stores. Each store contains levels of positions that range from team member to general manager of the store. Above the in-store manager is the operations manager who is in charge of a group of roughly 10 stores, and above that are more senior management positions based out of the offices that are tasked with coordinating a region and maintaining communication with the company's CEO in London. All office employees are paired with a "buddy shop" where they work at least two days a year.
While the uppermost levels of management are located in the offices, not all the office jobs are above the store jobs in the organisational structure. Orders do not strictly flow from the head offices in a top-down manner; instead, the channel of communication between the executives and the stores is open in both directions.
Pret a Manger promotes an internal culture as described in a leaflet entitled "Pret Behaviours". The Behaviours break down traits into three categories: passion, clear talking and team working – and identify specific behaviours as "Don't want to see", "Want to see", and "Pret perfect!" The number of Behaviours Pret hopes an employee exhibits increases with rank within the company: team members should practise around six Behaviours, managers ten, and the company's executives all of them.
See also
In Spanish: Pret a Manger para niños
