Pret a Manger to open new larger-format stores in expansion plan
Pret a Manger is launching new-format stores with made-to-order food and more dining space as part of efforts to accelerate its regional expansion across the UK.
The sandwich and coffee chain, which has been popular with London commuters, has said the new stores are designed to encourage customers to dine in and take their time, as it also adapts to increased remote working.
Pret, which has now grown to an estate of 500 sites across the UK, is trialling the new format in Broughty Ferry near Dundee and Maidenhead, Berkshire.
It said this would differentiate from the format of most of its London stores, where it primarily sells 'grab-and-go' products, with customers typically served in less than a minute.
It has developed an exclusive menu for the shops, where much of its menu is made to order, there is more space for dine-in customers and it will operate a Little Stars Cafe play area for families with young children.
The move is part of efforts by Pret to expand beyond London, with the vast majority of its recent coffee shop openings taking place outside the capital.
Clare Clough, Pret's managing director for UK & Europe, said: 'Throughout the past five years, we've made it a priority to bring Pret to more people, whether you're a City worker commuting to the office, a parent juggling work and family life, or someone catching up with friends.
'Now, we're taking that further, making Pret a destination for customers in a bit less of a rush who want a comfortable space to enjoy delicious food and spend time with family and friends.
'Our teams have been hard at work making sure everything from the shop design to the unique menu items have been carefully thought through and we can't wait to see how our customers respond.'
The business was founded in London in 1986 by Julian Metcalfe and Sinclair Beecham. It was bought by German investor JAB Holdings in 2018 for around £1.5 billion.
Last week, JAB said it could consider selling a stake in the sandwich chain ahead of a potential stock market flotation.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
39 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Miliband has got his nuclear plans wrong. Here's what we should do
Yesterday, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband announced a new 'golden age ' of nuclear energy. But with the wrong technology, unfit regulation and no real delivery plan, his golden age already looks tarnished. He's pinning his hopes on an already out-dated large-scale nuclear technology that has been plagued by construction problems in Finland, France and the UK and whose developer EDF is already moving on to a newer version. And while his commitment to small modular reactors (SMRs) is commendable, they are at best a decade away with no examples in existence in the West. While it is tempting to think you could simply hoist a submarine reactor onto a dock and call it a power station, this is unrealistic. Military reactors are designed for stealth, speed and war, not for civilian safety, grid connectivity or cost-efficiency. So Rolls Royce has had to develop an entirely new concept. In fact the current market leaders in Western SMR-design are GE-Hitachi whose small boiling water reactors recently began construction in Canada. However, given the imminent retirement of all but one of our existing large nuclear reactors, bigger is better for the nuclear ambition, and in this, Miliband's plan is woefully inadequate. Luckily, there is a solution ready and waiting: the Korean APR1400 design which has been successfully completed in both South Korea and UAE with eight units now in operation, built in an average of 8.5 years, at an average cost of $5-6 billion. Far cheaper than the £40 billion some analysts expect Sizewell C to cost. Around £6 billion is thought to have been spent already. The Korean design has been approved by both US and European regulators and should be a no-brainer for the UK: build what works. But to do this we need to take an axe to our overgrown thicket of nuclear regulation. The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) bizarrely reports to the Department for Work and Pensions, not the Energy Secretary, and sits beyond any meaningful strategic oversight. This well-intentioned separation has resulted in a regulatory regime akin to requiring 57 seat belts in your car – technically thorough, but practically unhinged. One requirement is that each new reactor design must expose workers to even less radiation than its predecessor. That might sound like progress, until you realise that radiation levels inside a modern nuclear plant are already so low they're hard to detect at all. The plant manager at one of our old Advanced Gas Cooled reactors (AGRs) once told me that the only time his radiation detector registered anything other than zero was when he left it on his desk and the sun shone on it. Nuclear workers are typically exposed to more radiation on the street than inside the plant. At this point, further exposure reductions offer no safety benefit. They just add cost, complexity and delay. The environmental regulators are as bad. The Sizewell C design is exactly the same as Hinkley Point C and the site is almost identical to Sizewell A and B. So why on earth were 40,000 pages of environmental statements required? This regulatory excess is expensive and draws out the process of approving new reactors beyond what is remotely reasonable. Britain risks running out of electricity. We had a near miss blackout event in January that was likely a factor in the renewal of the controversial biomass subsidies. We are also likely to see further small extensions to our ageing AGRs which are nearing the ends of their lives. But with a third of our fleet of gas power stations dating back to the 1990s and expected to retire in the next five years, Britain can ill afford delays to new nuclear plants. Particularly not the sort of avoidable delays our overzealous regulators have created. If Miliband is serious both about his golden age of nuclear, and more particularly, keeping the lights on in a decarbonised world, he needs to be far more ambitious. A truly serious plan would involve a programme of 5-6 large-scale reactors, and since the Koreans have the best track record, we should sign them up. He needs to get tough on the regulators. Abolishing ONR altogether and creating a new regulator, as part of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, with staff who are experts in risk management as well as nuclear safety, and severely curtailing the power of environmental regulators. One of the biggest benefits of nuclear power is its high energy density: it uses very little land to create a lot of energy. That should be taken into account, with regulators forced to look at the national picture rather than taking a strictly site by site approach. And he needs to stop wasting time with incentives for investors. They are not interested in the risk of our shambolic regulatory landscape. He should face this reality, and commit public money for the construction of the first two new reactors, re-financing once construction is completed. This would be a profitable strategy: the Government can borrow more cheaply than the private sector, the Korean design (with suitable regulatory restraint) can be built faster than the Hinkley design, meaning lower financing costs, and nuclear reactors are very profitable to run so investors will be very interested once the risky construction phase is over. He could even offer shares to the public in a 21st Century version of 'Just tell Sid' which remains the most successful public share subscription in UK history, and would perfectly align with Chancellor Rachel Reeves' ambition for UK savers to deploy their capital in the interests of national infrastructure.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Britain should stay close to US to ward off Russian threat, says defence chief
Britain should stay close to the US to stand up to the threat from Russia, the Chief of the Defence Staff has said. Admiral Sir Tony Radakin's comments came after Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general, told The Telegraph that people in Britain had 'better learn to speak Russian' if the Government did not drastically increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP. Sir Tony, the head of the British military, appeared before the Commons defence select committee on Tuesday, where he was asked if he agreed with Mr Rutte's comments. He said such a scenario could be avoided by sticking close to America and strengthening Nato, telling MPs: 'We all accept that we are in this era of change. 'The piece that I think is so true and consistent for the UK is this security construct which is extraordinary and we should celebrate. 'We are a nuclear power. We are the world's largest and most powerful military alliance and we have as our principal ally the world's most powerful country on the planet. That's what keeps us safe. 'That's what we need to bind to, that's what we are doing, and that's what we need to strengthen so that we don't have the concerns that we are all going to be speaking Russian.' Sir Tony's remarks came as Rachel Reeves prepared to deliver her spending review, in which the Chancellor will set out the details of departmental spending, on Wednesday. However, Sir Tony, who steps down as CDS this autumn and will be replaced by Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, refused to say whether he supported an uplift in defence spending to 3 per cent and beyond. Sir Tony also acknowledged the changing relationship between America and the UK, now that Donald Trump has asked the UK to shoulder more of the burden in Europe. Asked if the US withdrew, either entirely or partly, its contribution to Nato, would Europe be strong enough to 'match' Russia, Sir Tony said it was. However, he also insisted that 'America is sticking with Nato'. 'America is going to continue to provide all of us in Europe with the nuclear security guarantee,' he said, while cautioning that the US has other priorities, from homeland security to the Indo-Pacific. 'We no longer have that guarantee in terms of conventional American help for the security of Europe,' Sir Tony said. 'That is a significant change and that's why you are seeing Europe responding.'
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Bangor university boss gets pay rise while staff jobs cut
A university's decision to give its vice chancellor a 13% pay rise before cutting dozens of jobs has been criticised by a trade union. Bangor University's annual report for 2023/24 showed vice chancellor Edmund Burke received a pay rise of more than £30, Jones, the UCU union's vice president and a senior lecturer at the university said the increase was "shocking and disappointing".Bangor University said "the current salary… reflects not only the full responsibilities of the role but also market benchmarking against peers leading similarly complex institutions". The annual report showed Mr Burke received a salary of £273,000 compared to the previous year where he was paid £222,000 for 11 months' Jones said: "It hurts and it feels like another blow to our staff who have already been through such a difficult period."The union representative said he would "welcome" the vice-Chancellor volunteering to repay some of his salary."If he were to have rejected the pay rise, that could have saved one or two jobs," said Mr Wyn Jones, chairwoman of the university's council, warned in its annual report there are "financial challenges facing the university and the sector" and said they "face unprecedented challenges due to historically static tuition fees for home undergraduate students which are set by the government, persistent inflationary pressures, and policy changes on international student visas".In February, the university said it needed to cut 200 jobs to make financial month, Professor Burke sent an email to staff saying the university had made "good progress" in making savings through "strict controls" and "voluntary severance and retirements". The number of jobs to be cut had therefore been revised down to 78. The UCU union was unhappy that, during financial difficulties, some senior staff were rewarded financially, with the annual report document demonstrating the number of employees growing from 18 to 26 in a year."We are talking about substantial sums of money, which are enough to keep a great many of those who are facing losing their jobs in employment," said Mr said the union wanted to see fewer jobs with "very high salaries" to "protect jobs which command a lower salary, but which, in my opinion, are far more important for the university".Bangor University said in a statement: "The increase reflects a combination of factors, including the appointment or promotion to leadership roles where salaries are benchmarked against national and standards."Our core mission continues, which is to provide a high standard of education and deliver research of the highest quality. "We are committed to transparency and accountability across all our work, including salaries, the salary of the vice chancellor and Executive Board which is paid by the Remuneration Committee. "Our leadership team concentrates on using resources responsibly to support our mission and future stability."A spokesperson also said the vice chancellor had not received a pay rise in the current year.
