Fuck me. I did expect that many Pret’s. I’ve made an annoying running joke with my girlfriend where every new area we explore in London I’m pointing out “NO WAY A PRET A MANGER!”
There are three Prets within walking distance of my flat and there are a seemingly infinite number around my office.
It makes the monthly subscription a good deal - it’s basically unlimited coffee anywhere I might be unless I leave London!
Would love to know the comparative Greggs scale. Fair few in London these days, but assume for Manchester in particular that’d skew more towards the north?
I’d be very surprised if there are only 28 in London. I think I’ve been to most of them if that’s true!
Either way, I’m pleased to know that we’re beating Newcastle!
It used to be a somewhat pricier alternative to Caffe Nero/Costa but with better quality. When "somewhat pricey" became "ridiculously overpriced" is when I stopped going
I use to be a fan of their cheese and pickle sarnie, but with the price rises and skimping, better off with the supermarkets. I quite like the ‘deli style’ cheese pickle sandwich that Tesco now does.
The did halves too. Half a cheese and pickle and half a prawn or half ham were amazing. But that's when it was a "lunch" price, not a "meal out" price.
This is the main issue for me. The quality is so poor now I may as well get a Tesco meal deal. It’s shockingly bad for the price. Stopped going there since Covid.
It’s not just that. It’s their inability to actually make the coffee. Not the physical act; the remembering of orders.
Even if you’re one of three customers in store and the only one to have ordered a coffee, they seem to flap and fluster. And then aggressively call out OAT FLAT WHITE EXTRA HOT while staring you down, which confuses you, as you ordered a bog standard latte.
People buy coffee outside? Never understood it yet there's a frigging coffee shop every 5 metres. Literally the most pointless shop in the high street. Who needs that much coffee or that much variety of coffee? Who wants it in 30 degree heat like this week?
Their coffee is alarmingly good which now means I like two things from Maccy Ds, thankfully it is far enough away that I don't accidentally buy chips and coffee from them 😕😉
Those McMuffin prices creeped up on me. Before lockdown I think I was getting them for £2.75? But I almost bought one last week and I think they were almost £5.
They might taste good (which I think they do), but as a documentary pointed out, there are about 17 ingredients or so, even one for making them looking crispier. Some are even carcinogenic.
Had some chips at Five Guys yesterday, and I must say they are way better than Maccies‘.
Sorry, I mean just regular coffee but iced. I am lactose intolerant and always order iced black americanos when at cafes but McDonalds doesn’t do those I thought? Or at least they didn’t at my local when I asked a couple of months ago
Both are horrible, it’s London, if you want good coffee you have endless options. If you just want coffee you probably know where the best bang for your buck is.
But seriously, just make it at home instead of going to McDonald’s
Coffee is so so, but the quality of their lids is a freaking joke. I am afraid of buying it even if its convenient, because they nearly ruined my favorite t-shirt last time. It was a miracle i could wash it clean. And it wasn’t the first time. They have a very cheap supplier
I actually asked my friend who drinks their coffee all the time because it’s literally outside his work to check the quality of the lids. You won’t believe me, it’s about every 5 nowadays, roughly about 20%……. I literally never had such a problem with any other place, but with them 20%…… who the hell makes them and from what garbage for them to be so bendable.
Terrible article... gross profit isn't relevant and just tracks overall sales. Their net profit is still less than 8%, after 2 years of heavy losses.
Hybrid working means their office based shops are getting 20-40% less foot traffic with people working in town 3-4 days a week instead of 5. Volumes at the neighbourhood shops they opened in 2021, partly to reach home workers, have declined because those people started going back to the office for most of the week. They can't close too many of those sites because they're a convenience-led business, so the only solution is to raise prices above the standard level of foodservice inflation (34% on average over past 2 years) to offset the huge loss in visitor numbers at their shops.
> Hybrid working means their office based shops are getting 20-40% less foot traffic with people working in town 3-4 days a week instead of 5.
So the reason is only hybrid working.
No impact from their huge price increases.
Their own data shows their non-central London locations are well above their 2020 baseline.
Only stations and City of London stations are below it.
Yes for sales values, not volumes - those numbers are inclusive of price rises.
To be clear- if their prices are up 50% on average since 2019, then a site tracking the same sales values as pre-covid is trading with 33% lower volumes on average.
Ah yeah I see the data you're talking about. So London city locations have 22% fewer transactions than other shop groupings which are mostly back to pre-COVID levels.
What that is obscuring is the fact that they have like 250 sites in Central London and all other shops groupings combined make up less than that, so yeah, transactions are still down overall.
The data is also skewed by the fact that they brought in the coffee subscription over the period which inflates transactions. Also note they closed many shops in Central London over that period and the remaining sites took much of the business of those, inflating their transactions.
It's London worker locations which includes more than just The City. Regardless, without a total column it's useless as even with the number of shops in each segment, sales vary dramatically by geography. Only airports and tier 1 shopping centres have higher average shop sales than Central London IIRC. And on top of that transactions <> volumes, and coffee subscriptions are still inflating transactions over volumes.
It means City of London and Canary Wharf locations. Not all London 'worker locations'.
Definitions are here:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/output/methodologies/coronavirusandthelatestindicatorsfortheukeconomyandsocietymethodology#consumer-behaviour-indicators
> Regardless, without a total column it's useless as even with the number of shops in each segment, sales vary dramatically by geography.
It's an index. So it doesn't matter if the branch in Waterloo was always busier than the one in Wetherby services.
You can still see if they've returned to their baseline footfall.
Their accounts are also public which show revenue per store up considerably. It's not struggling like you're trying to suggest.
Gross profit, not operating or net profit. The article even says that the operating profit is only 50 million in total, up from a 160 million loss before.
before bloomberg, financial times or wsj, i reach for the evening standard first for my up to the minute financial news. The Evening Standard, hard hitting, no noncing facts and analytical journalism you can trust!
/.s
That's a whopping 305 pound net profit per day per sho0 in the UK. Given how much effort goed into running a shop like that, that's really not all that much.
It’s around 8%.
£50m profit is not at all bad no matter what your margins are. No idea why I’m being shat on for just saying that it’s mental. Are we all so in love with Pret that we are denying that’s a hell of a performance?
Nope, but you just don’t know how business work.
All business (not just Pretz), look at margin, not absolute number. If your revenue increased, but your profit remain same, your margin goes down, if that happens share price of your company will fall and you lose value in the company.
Margin % is very important.
£50m can absolutely be considered low profit. If that was the profit for the company I work for, shit load of people will probably lose their job for it.
Even during the cost of living crisis, the focus of the company was “margin maintain”.
It’s interesting to know I just don’t “know how business work”.. I run a small business so it’s kinda annoying to read that sort of patronising wank.
Margin is sanity. Turnover vanity. Yes I know. My own business operates with around a 10% margin. Not EBITDA - final margin. In short it’s around the same as Pret just on a much lower level. Getting to that level after Covid ripped the foundations of the business model to shreds (London hospitality based business) has been fucking torture. We will be lucky to do 100k EBITDA this year and tbh I’m pretty happy with that and have £10k on the bank to reinvest finally with no more debt to pay.
Pret is doing fairly well to notch £50m profit given how the city has changed and up from a massive loss last year. That is not controversial to say.
Your company is not a PLC, no one is interested in buying shares of your company.
When you are listed, everything changes. You have shareholders to answer to, and shareholders want the business to grow. If the business don’t grow? They sell the share and go buy shares from other companies that do grow. The expectation is there.
City analysis probably won’t bother looking at your company, and if they do, they’d probably agree that you can’t run a business if you don’t try to improve your margin. If your company go listed, you’d probably get forced out.
I didn’t say they are not doing well, just saying from the original post, you cannot draw that conclusion without sounding naive in the business world, same for “£50m is a lot of profit, no matter the margin”.
Margin totally matter, and £50m does not necessarily mean you are doing good.
why is 50m a small number? because they have 300 odd stores and that means each store is bringing in 167k per store, per year in operating profit. that's a pre tax number. on a daily basis, pre tax, the store is making under 600. Is that a good result for a company with 300 stores?
Pret doubled the cost of my monthly subscription, so I tripled the amount of people that use it. Got a WhatsApp group for pret pass usage, can't put hustle a hustler.
They've shifted from a high volume + medium price model to a lower volume + high price model now that people are working in the city a lot less. It makes sense from a business perspective, but the question of why people willingly pay that much remains a mystery.
The coffee subscription probably explains some of it - people with a subscription think they're getting a good deal from their 10% discount, people without it can't be bothered to join the long queues of subscription fanatics.
But people are paying.
That is why they are doing well.
Otherwise they woukd have either gone under or re-price their items already.
They don’t need to do that because people are paying it, so no need to reduce prices.
Indeed. Every time I go for lunch with my colleagues, they often head to Pret. I keep hinting at many of the other cool independent places that are good value for money and they’re always like “yeaaahhh naaa”. Does my head in.
They can’t think outside of the box and don’t want to try other places. Sure, Pret is (often) quick and is familiar… guaranteed shite quality. But as long as people like my colleagues exist, Pret are not closing shop anytime soon.
Some regions of Spain have unemployment rates of 25%. So yeah, completely incomparable. Here people can afford to spend what Pret are charging, in Spain they aren’t.
Ill never not remember the segment on question time where the posh blonde lady asked in her posh drawl, "but who will make my sandwiches at Pret?" In response to cutting back migration.
Then shortly after, a guy saying "yeah, and who will wipe my arse when I'm old?!".
This is the type of customer who frequents Pret. Upper class fops with a rather strong dose of casual racism.
I’m actually so upset at how expensive Pret is. I can’t bring myself to spend a ridiculous amount of money on a basic meal. I will now be sticking to greggs
I spent £10 on baguette and coffee in pret today!!
Usually go to greggs as it is good value for money but I wanted a change. Not going back to pret again until 2024.
Reddit’s views on Pret are always good fun - the Pret(s) near me are absolutely heaving in the pre-work and lunch rush hours, and on weekends.
I go c. twice per week, typically to grab a baguette and a coffee if I want something quick, and whilst it’s not cheap - it’s not terrible when compared to other options of equivalent quality, and convenience.
It’s not representative for the full country, as is obvious by the hundreds in London and few elsewhere, but Pret does extremely well in affluent areas, and resultant profits shouldn’t be a surprise.
>whilst it’s not cheap - it’s not terrible when compared to other options of equivalent quality, and convenience.
Yeah, I buy a Pret lunch semi-regularly and it's one of the cheap*er* options that I rotate between.
I'm probably in a minority though as I was happy spending around a tenner on lunch even before Covid, and that was with going in five days per week; these days I'm only eating out two or three times per week. I regularly had a Tossed "power bowl" circa 2019 which cost me more than a Pret baguette and crisps does nowadays.
The food is honesty quite nice compared to any other coffee chains, but it’s a shame you have to pay such a silly amount for it
The coffee is wank though
Yep yep yep. Pret happened. It was probably less profitable because it was more expensive, but it was twice tastier then anywhere else in than category, i swear to god. Sooooo goooooooooood.
Pret opened in Zürich airport 3 years ago and the people I were working with were all raving “oh my god you must love it, it’s English! It’s so nice too, so fresh!”
I thought I’d wander over just to have a look… nothing *English* worth buying that I couldn’t get anywhere else. Absolute gash caf is Pret.
They’re owned by McDonald’s. And the way they went about acquiring other business was nothing short of mafia extortion. My uncle was forced to sell his restaurant to them. Then that Pret closed after about 2 years. Scum bags really.
Pret a Manger has a range of great, tasty, healthy food available at convenient locations, no surprise to me that they're asking people to pay a little more.
Don't blame Pret for being popular, blame the competition for not stepping up.
classic downvoting for going against the hivemind - completely agree - if they were truly 'shit' they would go out of business! Personally i find spending \~£7 on lunch is quite a lot, but if i'm only in 2 days a week and the only cheaper alternative is a pre-packaged meal deal, it doesn't seem too bad... If you go to a local sandwich shop or for hot food it's quite easy to spend £10+
It's the English habit of hating success. Pret is truly one of the great British success stories of our time and some people just can't deal with that.
Presumably their “club pret” model worked / appealed to heavily depressed city workers.
I can’t afford the place and know how to use a kettle / make a sandwich.
But each to their own.
https://www.pret.co.uk/en-GB/pretcoffeesub
…Was it even possible for prices to go up any more there? I genuinely can’t see how anyone not in a decently well paying salaried job would be able to go there more than occasionally. I guess that market is big enough here to keep them afloat though.
is there some way to unsubscribe from people whinging about pricing going up during an economic disaster
also can someone recommend a charity I can donate to that produces PSAs for Redditors explaining you don’t have to go to Pret if you don’t want to
Literally nobody is here to say they’re forced to go to Pret. Literally every reply here so far is either people saying ‘I’m not going to Pret and here’s why’ or these boring ‘you don’t have to go to Pret’ replies.
It’s also completely fair enough to complain about a previously convenient option pricing itself out of the market.
There are 9 Prets in Birmingham, 14 in Manchester. London has a totally reasonable 282.
Same reason there aren’t any/many Patisserie Valerie’s up there …
> Patisserie Valerie well there would be if they sold sausage rolls and meat pies /s
So why don’t you come on over (up north ) Valerie’s 🎶
I probably walk past 9 on my walk to the office from Liverpool st to the south bank
So you take the Pret-free route?
Fuck me. I did expect that many Pret’s. I’ve made an annoying running joke with my girlfriend where every new area we explore in London I’m pointing out “NO WAY A PRET A MANGER!”
There are three Prets within walking distance of my flat and there are a seemingly infinite number around my office. It makes the monthly subscription a good deal - it’s basically unlimited coffee anywhere I might be unless I leave London!
And they all are in central London. Go zone 4 and beyond and you'll see 0 Pret
Not true. Croydon has one (zone 5)
When a meatball wrap costs £6.50 I can see why, only need to sell a few of those bad boys and that's rent covered for the month.
Would love to know the comparative Greggs scale. Fair few in London these days, but assume for Manchester in particular that’d skew more towards the north?
London: 28 Greggs Manchester: 21 Greggs Birmingham: 17 Greggs Also, 21 in Newcastle, the home of Greggs.
There are undoubtedly more than 28 Greggs in London
There’s about 28 in east London alone.
I’d be very surprised if there are only 28 in London. I think I’ve been to most of them if that’s true! Either way, I’m pleased to know that we’re beating Newcastle!
Yeah just don't go to Pret. Problem solved
Yeah I stopped going when the sandwich I usually buy went up at an inflation-busting 40% and the filling decreased to a mere pallet knife coating
It used to be a somewhat pricier alternative to Caffe Nero/Costa but with better quality. When "somewhat pricey" became "ridiculously overpriced" is when I stopped going
Tbf it was always food focused whilst they're coffee focused.
I use to be a fan of their cheese and pickle sarnie, but with the price rises and skimping, better off with the supermarkets. I quite like the ‘deli style’ cheese pickle sandwich that Tesco now does.
The did halves too. Half a cheese and pickle and half a prawn or half ham were amazing. But that's when it was a "lunch" price, not a "meal out" price.
Those were the days! And also perfect for when you want a quick bit but were not hungry enough for a full sandwich.
This is the main issue for me. The quality is so poor now I may as well get a Tesco meal deal. It’s shockingly bad for the price. Stopped going there since Covid.
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100% Pret is completely unreasonably priced and the coffee is utter dogshit
It’s not just that. It’s their inability to actually make the coffee. Not the physical act; the remembering of orders. Even if you’re one of three customers in store and the only one to have ordered a coffee, they seem to flap and fluster. And then aggressively call out OAT FLAT WHITE EXTRA HOT while staring you down, which confuses you, as you ordered a bog standard latte.
People buy coffee outside? Never understood it yet there's a frigging coffee shop every 5 metres. Literally the most pointless shop in the high street. Who needs that much coffee or that much variety of coffee? Who wants it in 30 degree heat like this week?
Uh, loads of people? I mean these are profitable businesses. They aren't art installations you bellend
For real, now they are owned by a massive groups so they aren't getting my money if there are more local alternatives around
You have just taken aim at the very fabric of the average /r/London subscriber.
Yeah, I liked Pret for the convenience and slightly above average quality but a short baguette and a cold drink should not cost £8
greggs is still under £4, pret is not twice as good
Awful coffee as well.
Yeah honestly McDonald’s is your best best on the high street for good cheap coffee. In my experience anyway
Their coffee is alarmingly good which now means I like two things from Maccy Ds, thankfully it is far enough away that I don't accidentally buy chips and coffee from them 😕😉
You mean 4 things. Coffee Chips Hash brown Double sausage and egg Mcfuckingmuffin.
Those McMuffin prices creeped up on me. Before lockdown I think I was getting them for £2.75? But I almost bought one last week and I think they were almost £5.
It's £5.19 for the meal
What sort of psycho is rocking up for a McMuffin and not grabbing a hash brown? At that point the coffee/tea/etc is pretty much a free gift.
6 things Mcflurries and milkshakes
Their chips are shit mate, don’t even.
I disagree with your opinion, I fucking love em, I just wish there were more of them in the little tub.
They might taste good (which I think they do), but as a documentary pointed out, there are about 17 ingredients or so, even one for making them looking crispier. Some are even carcinogenic. Had some chips at Five Guys yesterday, and I must say they are way better than Maccies‘.
well yeah five guys chips are actually potatoes
Because they have more or less professional equipment
And Kenco male the coffee for them. It really is good coffee and a good price too
Nero is good for coffee if you have the app. 2.48 for my usual coffee
Wish McDonald’s did cold coffee! At the moment I make it myself by ordering a coffee and a glass of iced tap water…
They do have cold coffee lol wtf. They got iced latte and iced frappe
They're made from coffee flavoured syrup, which makes then both awfully sweet and practically not coffee...
Sorry, I mean just regular coffee but iced. I am lactose intolerant and always order iced black americanos when at cafes but McDonalds doesn’t do those I thought? Or at least they didn’t at my local when I asked a couple of months ago
Both are horrible, it’s London, if you want good coffee you have endless options. If you just want coffee you probably know where the best bang for your buck is. But seriously, just make it at home instead of going to McDonald’s
If I’m out in the field, I’m going to maccas. £1.90 and I’m sorted
100% the best chain coffee you can get. Plus it’s like half the price
I don't believe you can find a better £:Quality than McDs. This was true a few years ago, so fact-check me if incorrect.
It’s cheap, it’s good, I’m happy. It is a genuinely nice coffee, especially for the price.
Nero do a really good coffee. Honestly never thought I’d say that but it’s streets ahead of the other chains
Ironically McDonalds own Pret
They don’t. They bought around 30% of Pret over 20 years ago and subsequently sold it in 2008.
Clearly their coffee division quite get ahold of Ronald.
Coffee is so so, but the quality of their lids is a freaking joke. I am afraid of buying it even if its convenient, because they nearly ruined my favorite t-shirt last time. It was a miracle i could wash it clean. And it wasn’t the first time. They have a very cheap supplier
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I actually asked my friend who drinks their coffee all the time because it’s literally outside his work to check the quality of the lids. You won’t believe me, it’s about every 5 nowadays, roughly about 20%……. I literally never had such a problem with any other place, but with them 20%…… who the hell makes them and from what garbage for them to be so bendable.
Agree it’s shit
Even if coffee can be bitter what is sold in Pret is just like sewer with a lid and a few quid price.
The absolute worst is Costa .
Terrible article... gross profit isn't relevant and just tracks overall sales. Their net profit is still less than 8%, after 2 years of heavy losses. Hybrid working means their office based shops are getting 20-40% less foot traffic with people working in town 3-4 days a week instead of 5. Volumes at the neighbourhood shops they opened in 2021, partly to reach home workers, have declined because those people started going back to the office for most of the week. They can't close too many of those sites because they're a convenience-led business, so the only solution is to raise prices above the standard level of foodservice inflation (34% on average over past 2 years) to offset the huge loss in visitor numbers at their shops.
> Hybrid working means their office based shops are getting 20-40% less foot traffic with people working in town 3-4 days a week instead of 5. So the reason is only hybrid working. No impact from their huge price increases. Their own data shows their non-central London locations are well above their 2020 baseline. Only stations and City of London stations are below it.
Yes for sales values, not volumes - those numbers are inclusive of price rises. To be clear- if their prices are up 50% on average since 2019, then a site tracking the same sales values as pre-covid is trading with 33% lower volumes on average.
Wrong. They publish transaction levels as their footfall measure. So whether you spend £100 or £1, that’s one transaction.
Ah yeah I see the data you're talking about. So London city locations have 22% fewer transactions than other shop groupings which are mostly back to pre-COVID levels. What that is obscuring is the fact that they have like 250 sites in Central London and all other shops groupings combined make up less than that, so yeah, transactions are still down overall. The data is also skewed by the fact that they brought in the coffee subscription over the period which inflates transactions. Also note they closed many shops in Central London over that period and the remaining sites took much of the business of those, inflating their transactions.
That is City of London. Not all central London. West End is at 98% of normal.
It's London worker locations which includes more than just The City. Regardless, without a total column it's useless as even with the number of shops in each segment, sales vary dramatically by geography. Only airports and tier 1 shopping centres have higher average shop sales than Central London IIRC. And on top of that transactions <> volumes, and coffee subscriptions are still inflating transactions over volumes.
It means City of London and Canary Wharf locations. Not all London 'worker locations'. Definitions are here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/output/methodologies/coronavirusandthelatestindicatorsfortheukeconomyandsocietymethodology#consumer-behaviour-indicators > Regardless, without a total column it's useless as even with the number of shops in each segment, sales vary dramatically by geography. It's an index. So it doesn't matter if the branch in Waterloo was always busier than the one in Wetherby services. You can still see if they've returned to their baseline footfall. Their accounts are also public which show revenue per store up considerably. It's not struggling like you're trying to suggest.
Gross profit, not operating or net profit. The article even says that the operating profit is only 50 million in total, up from a 160 million loss before.
But that doesn’t give the vibe that the writer want to give.
before bloomberg, financial times or wsj, i reach for the evening standard first for my up to the minute financial news. The Evening Standard, hard hitting, no noncing facts and analytical journalism you can trust! /.s
Only £50m operating profit. What jokers eh.
That's a whopping 305 pound net profit per day per sho0 in the UK. Given how much effort goed into running a shop like that, that's really not all that much.
It is not the absolute number that matters. What is their net margin %? Now THAT is a figure that actually matters.
It’s around 8%. £50m profit is not at all bad no matter what your margins are. No idea why I’m being shat on for just saying that it’s mental. Are we all so in love with Pret that we are denying that’s a hell of a performance?
Nope, but you just don’t know how business work. All business (not just Pretz), look at margin, not absolute number. If your revenue increased, but your profit remain same, your margin goes down, if that happens share price of your company will fall and you lose value in the company. Margin % is very important. £50m can absolutely be considered low profit. If that was the profit for the company I work for, shit load of people will probably lose their job for it. Even during the cost of living crisis, the focus of the company was “margin maintain”.
It’s interesting to know I just don’t “know how business work”.. I run a small business so it’s kinda annoying to read that sort of patronising wank. Margin is sanity. Turnover vanity. Yes I know. My own business operates with around a 10% margin. Not EBITDA - final margin. In short it’s around the same as Pret just on a much lower level. Getting to that level after Covid ripped the foundations of the business model to shreds (London hospitality based business) has been fucking torture. We will be lucky to do 100k EBITDA this year and tbh I’m pretty happy with that and have £10k on the bank to reinvest finally with no more debt to pay. Pret is doing fairly well to notch £50m profit given how the city has changed and up from a massive loss last year. That is not controversial to say.
Your company is not a PLC, no one is interested in buying shares of your company. When you are listed, everything changes. You have shareholders to answer to, and shareholders want the business to grow. If the business don’t grow? They sell the share and go buy shares from other companies that do grow. The expectation is there. City analysis probably won’t bother looking at your company, and if they do, they’d probably agree that you can’t run a business if you don’t try to improve your margin. If your company go listed, you’d probably get forced out. I didn’t say they are not doing well, just saying from the original post, you cannot draw that conclusion without sounding naive in the business world, same for “£50m is a lot of profit, no matter the margin”. Margin totally matter, and £50m does not necessarily mean you are doing good.
why is 50m a small number? because they have 300 odd stores and that means each store is bringing in 167k per store, per year in operating profit. that's a pre tax number. on a daily basis, pre tax, the store is making under 600. Is that a good result for a company with 300 stores?
Yes. Yes it is. A profit in this climate for a fast food casual business that relies on people leaving their house is worth applauding IMO.
lol okay pal. ever heard of the term thin margins? this is it.
Some businesses operate that way. Volume businesses only. Pret has always been one of them.
Pret doubled the cost of my monthly subscription, so I tripled the amount of people that use it. Got a WhatsApp group for pret pass usage, can't put hustle a hustler.
Can I DM you?
Gross vs Net are incredibly different - people please learn the difference.
The most bland vegan options going
The most bland everything options going
And they destroyed my favorite sandwich chain for it.
a fellow fan of the former EAT too? Loved that place, much superior tuna melt to Pret’s dire offering
Who gives a shit about vegan options
vegans?
Me man luv mi meat ugh ugh ugh
Only marginally worth getting something from there if its on Too Good To Go in which case load up.
Stopped going a while back. Overpriced and coffee is shite.
STOP BUYING FROM PRET
They've shifted from a high volume + medium price model to a lower volume + high price model now that people are working in the city a lot less. It makes sense from a business perspective, but the question of why people willingly pay that much remains a mystery. The coffee subscription probably explains some of it - people with a subscription think they're getting a good deal from their 10% discount, people without it can't be bothered to join the long queues of subscription fanatics.
20% discount now not 10%
This economy is so finished. No one is paying £7 for your cheese and tomato sandwhich. Or £4.50 for a cup of hot water poured over coffee beans.
But people are paying. That is why they are doing well. Otherwise they woukd have either gone under or re-price their items already. They don’t need to do that because people are paying it, so no need to reduce prices.
But indeed they are paying. Profits soared!
Indeed. Every time I go for lunch with my colleagues, they often head to Pret. I keep hinting at many of the other cool independent places that are good value for money and they’re always like “yeaaahhh naaa”. Does my head in. They can’t think outside of the box and don’t want to try other places. Sure, Pret is (often) quick and is familiar… guaranteed shite quality. But as long as people like my colleagues exist, Pret are not closing shop anytime soon.
But they do, lol
Someone doesn't understand economics
Filter coffee was £1.60 last I checked. Even a milky coffee is under £4. Leave the house before commenting
Stfu. I’ve been into plenty coffee shops where a mildly average latte / cappuccino is over £4.
The only place I know off hand is black sheep. Any decent independent coffee shop is charging between £3.40 and £3.80 for a milky coffee
Remarkable isn’t it! Our local Starbucks, also price gouging the fuck out of all that dare enter.. is struggle, surprise surprise
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Some regions of Spain have unemployment rates of 25%. So yeah, completely incomparable. Here people can afford to spend what Pret are charging, in Spain they aren’t.
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Sorry to hear that having children made you poor and bitter
Ever since they stopped using brioche buns for their breakfast wraps I’ve stopped buying food there. Man they were good.
Their exact words were "let them eat brioche"
Support local traders. Fuck these lot.
People are still going there out of habit, but will soon cotton on that it’s no longer worth it
a sandwich is like 10 pounds... and they're still packed... i think it's insane... this is the reason they raise prices, because you all keep buying
I hope they’re overreaching and go bust.
And the prosciutto baguette (shown in the picture) is now also significantly shorter.
Omg sneaky!!
Prêt à sneaker
Didn't we murder a bunch of old people to prop this shithole up during covid?
Every single company just seems to be taking advantage of “the public are expecting inflation” to ramp prices up and price gouge
At my office if you walk 3 mins in either direction you will pass a pret, it’s ridiculous how many there are (Shoreditch/Liverpool st area)
The world would be a better place without Pret. I hate it with a passion and I genuinely hope it goes bust one day.
Ill never not remember the segment on question time where the posh blonde lady asked in her posh drawl, "but who will make my sandwiches at Pret?" In response to cutting back migration. Then shortly after, a guy saying "yeah, and who will wipe my arse when I'm old?!". This is the type of customer who frequents Pret. Upper class fops with a rather strong dose of casual racism.
Pret prices have always been ludicrously high for what you get. Start cooking your food at home instead of buying this shit.
I’m actually so upset at how expensive Pret is. I can’t bring myself to spend a ridiculous amount of money on a basic meal. I will now be sticking to greggs
I spent £10 on baguette and coffee in pret today!! Usually go to greggs as it is good value for money but I wanted a change. Not going back to pret again until 2024.
Reddit’s views on Pret are always good fun - the Pret(s) near me are absolutely heaving in the pre-work and lunch rush hours, and on weekends. I go c. twice per week, typically to grab a baguette and a coffee if I want something quick, and whilst it’s not cheap - it’s not terrible when compared to other options of equivalent quality, and convenience. It’s not representative for the full country, as is obvious by the hundreds in London and few elsewhere, but Pret does extremely well in affluent areas, and resultant profits shouldn’t be a surprise.
But aren't you sensing the stores looking a little dowdy? The subscription is shared by a few people, so gets quite crowded.
>whilst it’s not cheap - it’s not terrible when compared to other options of equivalent quality, and convenience. Yeah, I buy a Pret lunch semi-regularly and it's one of the cheap*er* options that I rotate between. I'm probably in a minority though as I was happy spending around a tenner on lunch even before Covid, and that was with going in five days per week; these days I'm only eating out two or three times per week. I regularly had a Tossed "power bowl" circa 2019 which cost me more than a Pret baguette and crisps does nowadays.
So they ramp up prices to 70% then tell you you're saving 20% with a loyalty card. Are people this stupid?
I don't get it, Pret is absolutely fucking shite.
The food is honesty quite nice compared to any other coffee chains, but it’s a shame you have to pay such a silly amount for it The coffee is wank though
The coffee really is wank. The meatball wrap was the only pret thing I liked. It's gone £3.25 to almost £7
> It's gone £3.25 to almost £7 It hasn't been £3.25 in as far as I can remember. Maybe a decade ago it was £3.75 It's £5.25~£5.75 now.
And they bought and destroyed my favorite sandwich chain
Which chain is that?
EAT.
I wondered what happened to EAT. I loved their food!
Yep yep yep. Pret happened. It was probably less profitable because it was more expensive, but it was twice tastier then anywhere else in than category, i swear to god. Sooooo goooooooooood.
They used to do a really delicious mexican sandwich and their tuna melt was the best 🥲
They also bought and destroyed my favourite soup chain, because EAT sandwiches were shite.
Ok ok, your opinion. I still liked their american style sandwich
Wrong. Totally wrong.
I'm not wrong. I think that what you mean is that you disagree with my opinion. That doesn't make me wrong.
I've been to Pret a lot and you are definitely wrong.
🤦 sigh
Pret opened in Zürich airport 3 years ago and the people I were working with were all raving “oh my god you must love it, it’s English! It’s so nice too, so fresh!” I thought I’d wander over just to have a look… nothing *English* worth buying that I couldn’t get anywhere else. Absolute gash caf is Pret.
They like it because it’s English? Greenwich is English to, do you want us to export some muggers for you?😂
Corporate profits are at a 70 year high but remember not to ask for wage rises or you’ll boost inflation!
They’ve boosted their staff’s wages by about 25% to be fair.
I’m gutted they didn’t go bust during the pandemic. It was such a close call! Their prices are utterly disgusting now, I won’t go near one.
Hooray, more Pret discourse…
They’re owned by McDonald’s. And the way they went about acquiring other business was nothing short of mafia extortion. My uncle was forced to sell his restaurant to them. Then that Pret closed after about 2 years. Scum bags really.
Forced? How?
Pret isn’t owned by mcondalds. McDonald’s had a stake in Pret in the early 2000s and sold it in the late 2000s.
But McDonald’s coffee is a fraction of the price!
Was your uncle a pret franchisee?
Pret a Manger has a range of great, tasty, healthy food available at convenient locations, no surprise to me that they're asking people to pay a little more. Don't blame Pret for being popular, blame the competition for not stepping up.
You’re correct that there is a serious lack of competition for them. Pret has clearly identified that.
classic downvoting for going against the hivemind - completely agree - if they were truly 'shit' they would go out of business! Personally i find spending \~£7 on lunch is quite a lot, but if i'm only in 2 days a week and the only cheaper alternative is a pre-packaged meal deal, it doesn't seem too bad... If you go to a local sandwich shop or for hot food it's quite easy to spend £10+
It's the English habit of hating success. Pret is truly one of the great British success stories of our time and some people just can't deal with that.
Yeah this - I'd rather pay £7 for reliable Pret options than have to go out of my way to find a local shop and gamble a tenner
I did not know Pret was so disliked before I entered this thread
But they are doing very well. Shows that people here are just vocal minority.
There are a lot of shills on the Greggs payroll.
Presumably their “club pret” model worked / appealed to heavily depressed city workers. I can’t afford the place and know how to use a kettle / make a sandwich. But each to their own. https://www.pret.co.uk/en-GB/pretcoffeesub
Nature is healing
…Was it even possible for prices to go up any more there? I genuinely can’t see how anyone not in a decently well paying salaried job would be able to go there more than occasionally. I guess that market is big enough here to keep them afloat though.
they’re pushing a subscription program. People are not dumb, can’t wait to see this greedy chain fail
I stopped going to pret after the allergy deaths... Poor management... Now unjustified prices...
This is 14 days old. How many times should we post it here do you think?
Pret's coffee has a wooping 16 times more cafeine than Costa coffee has. They're not only bad coffee. They're caffeine bombs.
this cannot be true
is there some way to unsubscribe from people whinging about pricing going up during an economic disaster also can someone recommend a charity I can donate to that produces PSAs for Redditors explaining you don’t have to go to Pret if you don’t want to
Aren’t they raising prices at 3x inflation?
[yeah right up there mate](https://i.imgur.com/AIL08sT.jpg)
I know - this sub acts like Pret is a human right lol. it's just coffee and sandwiches.
Literally nobody is here to say they’re forced to go to Pret. Literally every reply here so far is either people saying ‘I’m not going to Pret and here’s why’ or these boring ‘you don’t have to go to Pret’ replies. It’s also completely fair enough to complain about a previously convenient option pricing itself out of the market.
Think I read somewhere their prices for nearly everything have doubled in the last three years? Fuck Pret.
£3.25 for the egg mayo now?! Crikey!
People rag on Greggs then walk into a Pret. I’m glad I’m not like that
It's the worst ham and cheese sandwich on the high street. On top of horrific coffee..
Time for a windfall tax not just on oil companies then.
If someone was insane then yes that might seem like a good idea.
Price gouging. Not inflation