Latest news with #PretaManger
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Warning over TikTok food sellers not listing allergens
TikTok users are selling food without listing allergen information, the BBC has found. Listings on TikTok Shop show people selling snacks and sweets without highlighting they contain one of the 14 main allergens that UK businesses are legally required to declare. When the BBC brought these listings to TikTok's attention, it deleted them and said: "TikTok Shop is committed to providing a safe and trustworthy shopping experience." Simon Williams, chief executive of Anaphylaxis UK, warned allergy suffers: "If the ingredient and allergen information isn't there, don't buy it. You're putting your life in grave danger." "We have policies and processes in place with our sellers to ensure the safety of food and beverages sold on our platform and we will remove products that breach these policies," a TikTok spokesperson said. However, it is currently possible to sell food on TikTok Shop without providing any ingredient or allergy information. The BBC found one seller, Mega Buy UK, selling a sweet treat related to the popular Netflix show Squid Game and listed the ingredients and allergens as "not applicable". Another UK-based seller called The Nashville Burger listed a burger-making kit that contained milk - one of the 14 allergens food businesses in the UK are required to declare on labels. It also contained wheat - which should be listed as an allergen under cereals containing gluten. However, on TikTok Shop, the allergen information was given as "spices" and the ingredient description simply said "flour". The BBC also found a seller called UK Snack Supply advertising lollipops and crisps with no ingredient or allergen information. TikTok has deleted the adverts the BBC highlighted, but all three companies are still on TikTok Shop selling other products without providing full allergen information. The BBC has approached all of these sellers for comment but could not independently verify that the sellers were all listed in the UK. However, allergy charities say regardless of where the firms are based more should be done to keep consumers safe. TikTok is a place where food trends go viral - from the pickle challenge which involved eating a hot pickle wrapped in a fruit roll-up - to Dubai chocolate which sparked a shopping frenzy. And while users consume the videos TikTok has also become a platform to buy and sell a bite of the action. Kate Lancaster's two children both have milk allergies and she regularly posts advice on TikTok as The Dairy Free Mum. She thinks TikTok has a responsibility to ensure all products sold on its shopping platform meet safety and labelling standards. "It's completely unacceptable and really worrying. Failing to provide ingredient information is potentially very dangerous, and it feels like a complete disregard for the safety of those living with food allergies," she said. Tanya Ednan-Laperouse co-founded The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation in the name of her daughter who died after an allergic reaction to a Pret a Manger sandwich. She said: "'TikTok is responsible for ensuring that all their UK food sellers meet legislative requirements to sell food products on their app. "Any that don't should be immediately removed from the app and investigated, but ideally this should not happen if their checks and balances are rigorous and in place." After her daughter's death, new safety rules, known as "Natasha's Law", were introduced which require full ingredient and allergen labelling on all food made on premises and pre-packed for direct sale. Kate believes TikTok is allowing sellers to "swerve" basic food labelling requirements as the app allows people not to list any ingredients at all and thinks the platform should penalise those who don't provide the correct information. "Since Natasha's Law has come into effect I feel that, in general, allergy labelling has improved, but it's frightening that a huge platform like TikTok does not have adequate measures to ensure that labelling is in place," she said. "The thought of someone with a food allergy, or an allergy parent, buying items that they assume are safe, when in fact they may not be, is really scary." Mr Williams from Anaphylaxis UK says the ultimate responsibility lies with the seller but does think TikTok could do more. "At the moment it's being used as a platform to sell things that may not be safe. They [TikTok] do need to do more," he said, "There's a lot of people making a lot of money, great side hustle, but they're putting people at risk." Dr James Cooper, deputy director of food policy at the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which is responsible for food safety in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, said: "Wherever people buy their food, it needs to be safe and what it says it is. "Food businesses in the UK must be registered with their local authority and follow food law. All food businesses have a legal responsibility to sell safe food and provide allergen information." The FSA website says that if food is sold online or over the phone through "distance selling" then allergen information must be provided at two different stages in the order process. This usually means providing allergy information in the online description and then also on the packaging so a buyer has two opportunities to check if their allergy could be triggered.
Daily Mirror
11-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mirror
Pret a Manger fans race to buy 2 new colourful dessert-inspired drinks
Two new unique and colourful latte drinks have been launched at Pret A Manger recently and are said to offer a 'fresh twist' - coffee lovers have been rushing out to try them Fans are rushing to get their hands on two brand new, unique drinks launched at Pret a Manger that come in fun colours and are inspired by desserts. It is the first time we have seen such a wacky but interesting flavoured drinks in the line-up from the high street coffee shop. As temperatures warm up, many of us are swapping our hot cups of coffee for iced delights. Coffee giants are selling a range of matcha flavours and iced lattes with delicious, sweet flavours. Pret A Manger has created a unique twist on the classic iced latte - and launched a purple latte and a blue one. Inspired by wellness flavours and social media trends, the new lattes are as delicious as they are Instagrammable - and they are available now for a limited time across UK shops. You can now order the Ube Brûlée and Spirulina Macaron lattes, both priced at £4.70. The new Ube Brûlée Iced Latte features the subtly sweet, nutty flavour of purple yam blended with caramel syrup combined with Pret's signature organic espresso served with milk and over ice. Meanwhile, the new Spirulina Macaron Iced Latte combines blue spirulina with sweet macaron syrup over Pret's organic espresso, milk and ice, giving a bold new twist in a striking blue hue. This is not the first Spirulina product to hit Pret's shelves. Following customer interest in Pret's Blueberry Balance Bowl which first launched in January, the new Spirulina Iced Latte builds on the success of that product but now with a refreshing twist. Briony Raven, Chief Customer & Product Offer at Pret A Manger said: "Iced coffee continues to boom in the UK, and at Pret we've been investing to make sure our customers can enjoy even more choice — especially when the sun's out. "We've invested heavily in making sure more than 90% of our shops have ice machines to give customers the opportunity to enjoy more Barista-made iced drinks and we're proud to launch Ube and Spirulina iced lattes, bringing bold new flavours and colours to our menu. These new drinks are a fun, fresh twist for customers this summer and sit alongside favourites like our Iced Matcha Latte and Iced Americano." Viral food reviewer Emily Jade, recently rushed out to try the new lattes. The content creator, who boasts over 459,000 followers on TikTok, first tucked into the Ube Brûlée Iced Latte. Emily said: "It's literally purple, it looks so my god that's good. I love the colour but honestly I'm not really getting the Ube flavour I'm just getting a sweet kind of flavour. I definitely get the crème brulee vibe." Moving onto the Spirulina Macaron latte, Emily said: "I think the colours are so cool. It tastes really good, but it does just taste really strong of coffee like I'm not getting any other flavour with this. It's good but I definitely prefer the other one." Meanwhile vegan food viewer Mairead, from Manchester, also rushed out to try the treats - and approves of the the Spirulina Macaron. She said: "It's not super just got a nice, subtle macaron flavour to it." She also noted she could taste hints of vanilla and coconut.
The Guardian
24-04-2025
- General
- The Guardian
‘Why do they dislike me so much?': the trials, trolls and triumphs of Britain's most divisive barrister
At lunchtime, when she is working at her barristers' chambers in central London, Charlotte Proudman, a specialist in family law, faces a confronting choice. Should she nip around the corner to Pret a Manger or join her colleagues at the Middle Temple dining hall? It's not so much a question of whether she feels like a sandwich or a sit-down meal, but a more existential decision, requiring her to analyse who she is and where she belongs. It is 15 years since Proudman qualified as a barrister, but she still feels a sense of alienation when she walks into the formal dining halls. 'It's largely a sea of male, pale, stale figures sitting there, all in their suits. They all look identical, and are probably from similar demographic backgrounds. As a woman, you already stand out,' she says when we meet at her deserted offices on Good Friday. 'It feels like a pocket of establishment elitism. In Pret you'll have a mixture of solicitors, some paralegals, maybe some judges popping in and out; it's more cosmopolitan.' Since she started eating at Middle Temple, Proudman, 36, has repeatedly been surprised by the questions the mostly male diners lob in her direction. When she began her career at the bar, she found that it was 'by some distance, the most male environment I had ever encountered'. Often the men begin by remarking that she has an accent, and start hazarding inaccurate guesses about where she's from. 'They suggest Leeds or Yorkshire and I'm not from any of those places – but it's almost as if they're making a point of the fact that I don't belong, that I'm an outsider,' she says, adding that almost no one has heard of Leek, the market town where she grew up, near Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. When she first qualified, she would be asked where she had studied at university; older barristers, she says, were nonplussed when she said Keele. Occasionally they asked her what her father did for a living; she avoided saying that he was an alcoholic who died in a car crash when she was four. She was unsettled by their shared cultural reference points. 'I know it sounds funny, but everyone's gone skiing, everyone goes to the opera. They have these extracurricular activities which I've just never done.' You can understand why Pret might begin to seem the logical choice. Proudman's unease echoes that felt by Brenda Hale, the first female president of the supreme court, when she moved from Yorkshire to London to start at the bar, and found herself surrounded by men she privately called 'quadrangle to quadrangle to quadrangle boys' – lawyers who had been at independent boarding schools, then Oxbridge and the Inns of Court in London, their lives bounded by similar architecture and privilege. Instead of bowing her head and quietly assimilating, Proudman has spent the past decade calling out misogyny in the legal world, managing in the process to alienate many of her male colleagues as well a number of female newspaper columnists, while also triggering a career-threatening disciplinary tribunal. This week she publishes a book on the work to which she has devoted her professional energies: supporting women with violent or controlling partners as they navigate the family courts. Proudman's achievements in this sphere are notable. One campaigner for greater openness in the notoriously untransparent family system (where critical decisions are made about how to organise care of children after divorce) pays effusive tribute to her work, characterising her as a 'brave and persistent disruptor'. A senior colleague at Proudman's chambers, Goldsmith, describes her as an excellent barrister who has achieved remarkable results by championing difficult issues such as coercive and controlling behaviour, by challenging the notion of parental alienation (a claim often used damagingly by fathers against mothers in response to accusations of domestic violence) and focusing attention on marital rape. But Proudman's book, He Said, She Said: Truth, Trauma and the Struggle for Justice in Family Court, is also a memoir that attempts to understand the sea of acrimony that she has provoked. 'Why do they dislike me so much?' Proudman wonders, laughing but sounding momentarily puzzled. 'They think I'm rocking the boat, maybe, causing trouble, pushing the boundaries of the law. Or maybe it's something about exposing the misogyny within the legal system, especially in criticising judges.' The bar has yet to have a #Metoo reckoning. Proudman describes two occasions when she was groped by male barristers, one of whom had been assigned to her as a professional mentor. She cites research indicating that four in 10 female barristers have experienced sexual harassment and sees this as the direct result of a 'predominance of men and male attitudes'. Although more women than men now study law at university, the bar has been slow to catch up; 41% of barristers are women, but just 21% of KCs (senior barristers). Junior women at the bar earn on average 77% of what junior men earn; female KCs earn on average only 67% as much as their male colleagues. In 2024, 62% of court judges in the UK were men, rising to 69% in the high court and 75% in the court of appeal. Proudman, who completed a doctorate at Cambridge, says: 'Women have to work much harder to stand out and show that we are very good at what we do. Look at how many mediocre white blokes there are that seem to be doing just fine.' Comments like these have not won her allies. She emerged into public consciousness a decade ago, when she called out a much older lawyer, a senior partner at a London solicitors' firm, who sent her a message on the business network LinkedIn, complimenting her on her profile picture. 'I appreciate this is probably horrendously politically incorrect but that is a stunning picture!!! You definitely win the prize for the best LinkedIn picture I have ever seen,' Alexander Carter-Silk wrote. She replied that she found his message offensive, and that she was using LinkedIn for professional reasons, 'not to be approached about my physical appearance or to be objectified by sexist men'. She took a screenshot of his message and posted it on Twitter, asking other female lawyers if they were getting similar messages. Within 24 hours her face was on the front of the Daily Mail, flagging an article by columnist Sarah Vine addressing the 'glam lawyer and the Feminazis who hate men who praise their looks'. Vine's article said: 'Heaven help the poor man who actually tries to ask her out on a date, let alone try to get her into his bed. He'd have better luck propositioning a porcupine.' She was on the Mail's front page for two days in a row. The online abuse this unleashed was standard, depressing mid-2010s fare for Twitter (as it then was): she was swiftly dismissed as 'rabid', 'humourless', 'dumb', 'a blockhead', 'whiny', 'malicious' and 'batshit insane' by anonymous trolls. But she was surprised to find some of the worst comments came from male barristers, tweeting under their own names. One wrote: 'If you want to be a shock jock, apply to a radio station. If you want to be a barrister, stop being a cunt.' Another described her as a 'self-publicist who cynically uses women's suffering to promote herself'. Others called her mentally ill and a 'wanker'. She removed herself from social media, but later returned because she recognised that her online profile helped her reach clients in areas she was interested in. For a while she was hurt by the criticism she provoked, but she says she no longer cares very much, having mostly worked out a way to divert the hostility into positive attention for causes she feels strongly about. Along the way, Proudman has concluded that likability is an overrated character requirement unhelpfully foisted on women and girls. 'I think I'm quite a likable person, when you get to know me,' she says. She spends some time amiably attempting to get the coffee machine started, and when this doesn't work she sets off to search the building for glasses of water, determined to be hospitable. 'But as young girls and young women, we are taught to want to be liked, and, for me now, wanting to be liked has largely gone by the wayside. I'm aware some people don't like me and I don't care. I'd rather be understood than liked.' In 2022 she typed a 14-part Twitter thread expressing frustration about a judgment by Sir Jonathan Cohen – who, like a handful of judges and dozens of senior barristers, was a member of the then men-only Garrick Club. Proudman felt the judgment had not taken the allegations of domestic abuse sufficiently seriously; she wrote that she was troubled by Cohen referring to the relationship between a woman and her ex-husband, who was a part-time judge and barrister, as 'tempestuous' and describing the alleged domestic violence as 'reckless'. She wrote that the case had 'echoes of the 'boys' club' which still exists among men in powerful positions'. The Bar Standards Board responded by launching disciplinary proceedings, on the grounds that the thread 'inaccurately reflected the finding of a judge on a case in which she was instructed', and that Proudman had behaved in a way 'which was likely to diminish the trust and confidence which the public placed in her and in the profession'. She faced a 12-month suspension and £50,000 fine, but in December, after three years, all charges against her were dropped and the case was dismissed. The panel ruled that her tweets were protected under freedom of expression rules, and that they did not 'gravely damage' the judiciary. She has since launched proceedings against the Bar Standards Board. 'Frankly, I'd like an apology and a sum of money to reflect the pain and distress that I've been put through,' she says. She would also like to understand why her male colleagues who abused her online have not been subject to similar proceedings. Proudman only has just over a decade's worth of career to cover, so her book doesn't have the heft of solicitor Harriet Wistrich's excellent recent memoir Sister in Law, which also tackles the need to remodel the legal system to offer better justice to women. But He Said, She Said is revealing about the hidden world of family courts, where she argues attitudes lag behind other courts because of the absence of routine scrutiny. She wrote it because she wanted to 'expose how the family justice system is failing women and children', and because she felt frustrated at seeing the same systemic failings repeated in case after case. 'A broken relationship and a family court case can happen to anyone,' she writes, 'and almost no one is prepared for what that is like. Nor is there nearly enough recognition of when and how the family court gets it wrong, and the shocking consequences of those decisions on the lives of women and children.' She has acted in cases where a judge has dismissed domestic violence, shrugging it off as 'just a bit of DV', and she has heard judges indulge in victim blaming, diminishing the significance of rape. One judge described an incident of strangulation as a prank, she says. She has secured judgments that recognise gaslighting as a form of domestic abuse, and that acknowledge the dangerous tactic of 'darvo' (deny; attack; reverse victim and offender) that perpetrators use to avoid being held accountable. 'It is women who make up almost three-quarters of domestic violence victims in the UK, and who will more often be asked to recall the painful details of how their partner verbally abused, coercively controlled, physically assaulted or raped them,' she writes. 'It is women who are mostly bringing forward the most serious allegations and who must prove what they are saying, while male respondents can sit back, poke holes in their arguments and cast doubt. And it is women who must face judges who are predominantly male, relying on their understanding of the nuances of domestic abuse and coercive control. Frequently, this feels like a game that women cannot win.' Not that it is a game, as far as Proudman is concerned. She is disparaging about colleagues who have 'jocular conversations' about their cases over lunch before moving on to the next job without a second thought. She dislikes the legal profession's readiness to view wrongdoing as a 'matter of technical debate' that should 'never be viewed through the lens of fairness or justice'. If her passion gets under some people's skin, so be it. The same goes for her high public profile: she sees self-promotion as an important part of carving out her practice. She takes care not to look too formal and stuffy in photos, occasionally posing in legal gowns and bare midriff, in order, she says, to show younger women that there is a place for them at the bar, in deliberate opposition to 'all these male, crusty white barristers'. She wants students to look at her and think: 'She looks cool. She's a barrister. I could do that.' He Said, She Said: Truth, Trauma and the Struggle for Justice in Family Court by Dr Charlotte Proudman is published on 1 May by W&N (£20). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
The Guardian
16-04-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Gail's to drop soya milk surcharge after campaign by Peta
The bakery chain Gail's is to drop its soya milk surcharge after a campaign by a leading animal rights charity argued that the fee 'unfairly discriminated' against customers. Gail's will offer free soya from 21 May for customers choosing dairy-free milk, following suit with most leading high street coffee chains, which tend to offer one – soya – for nothing. However, other dairy-free alternatives such as oat, almond and coconut milk often still come at a cost. Gail's previously charged between 40p and 60p extra if customers wanted oat or soya milk in their coffee or tea. There will still be a charge for oat milk. With at least one in three Britons now drinking plant-based milks, the animal rights charity Peta welcomed the move to help customers make more ethical choices, but also called on Gail's to drop its additional charge for oat milk. The charity's vice-president of vegan corporate projects, Dawn Carr, said: 'Charging more for plant milk leaves a bad taste in customers' mouths, particularly when it is a choice they make for their health, to be kind to cows, or for the planet. 'Peta celebrates Gail's taking the first step in offering soya without the surcharge, but to spare cows from harm and reduce methane emissions, the oat-milk upcharge also has to be ground down.' Pret a Manger stopped charging extra for plant-based milks such as oat, almond, soya and rice-coconut in the UK in 2020 after calls from animal rights advocates. Starbucks dropped its vegan milk surcharge in the UK in 2022. Leon and Joe and the Juice do not charge extra for any standard dairy-free milk alternatives. Costa Coffee and Caffè Nero do not charge for soya milk, but oat and coconut milk are an additional 45p at both. Costa also has an 'ultimate blend' plant-based milk alternative at some stores for 35p. Peta renewed its calls for these charges to be dropped. A spokesperson from Gail's said: 'We understand choice is important, which is why we're proud to offer British-grown oat milk and soya as dairy alternatives. From 21 May, there will be no additional charge for soya milk in our bakeries. We want to make it easier for everyone to enjoy their coffee or tea the way they like it, while remaining dedicated to sourcing high-quality ingredients that are both delicious and sustainable.'
The Guardian
03-04-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
‘We introduced avocado to the high street!' How Pret conquered London – and began eyeing the rest of the world
At 93-95 Victoria Street, Westminster, a blue plaque marks a piece of London history: the first ever branch of Pret a Manger opened on this spot on 22 July 1986. Nearly 40 years later, it is still going strong. It's a nice story – but it's not the whole story. Look closer and the plaque states that the first Pret sandwich shop opened 'near here'. In fact, it was down the road, at 75b, now a branch of Toni & Guy. Except … that wasn't the first shop, either. The original Pret opened two years earlier and five miles to the north, in Hampstead. It went bust after a year and the founder, Jeffrey Hyman, sold the name, branding and logo to Julian Metcalfe and Sinclair Beecham, who reopened in Westminster. That rocky beginning has been airbrushed from company history. Does it matter? Well, maybe. Pret is skilled at putting a neat spin on complex realities. Fast-forward to 2025 and London is packed with Prets. I meet Jack Chesher, the author of London: The Hidden Corners for Curious Wanderers, for a stroll through the City. As a historian, Chesher knows a lot about London's early coffee houses; as a walking guide, he has witnessed first-hand the proliferation of Pret. I see my first Prets of the day when I get on the tube at Finsbury Park, one near each entrance. I get out at Moorgate and immediately see another. I do a quick search on my phone – 20 Prets pop up on the map, all within a few minutes' walk. I'm not surprised: there are 274 branches in London, far more than in any other city. Manchester has 14, Birmingham 10, Edinburgh nine; a handful of cities have six, including Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol and Oxford. This is in contrast to, say, Greggs, which has just 42 branches in London and many more in northern England and Scotland. Tamsyn Halm, the editor of OOH (Out of Home) magazine, says: 'Pret has become synonymous with the capital. If you go to London, you need to go to Pret.' Chesher and I meet at Leadenhall Market, which stands at what was once the centre of Roman London. There is no Pret in the market itself, but I spot one just outside, on Gracechurch Street. We head down an alley to the site of London's first coffee house – now the Jamaica Wine House – which opened in 1652. Coffee houses quickly took off, says Chesher. It wasn't about the coffee, which was described as a 'syrup of soot and the essence of old shoes', but the atmosphere. 'These were buzzy, social spaces, where anyone from dockers to lawyers could go to read the newspapers and debate the issues of the day. They were known as penny universities.' It's a far cry from a typical Pret, where customers grab a coffee to go, or sit with a sandwich at their laptops, headphones in. Christopher Yap, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London, thinks this is a peculiarly British phenomenon. 'The work-food culture prioritises a particular form of eating,' he says. A 2023 survey of 35,000 workers across 26 countries found that the average lunch break in the UK is just 33 minutes and almost half of employees eat lunch alone. 'We don't have a culture of eating communally. This puts us in contrast with other European countries,' says Yap. What are all these harried, lonely Londoners buying from Pret? The latte (£3.80) is the bestseller and the top-selling foods are all baguettes: chicken caesar bacon, tuna mayo and cucumber, and cheddar and pickle. (I'm partial to a soy flat white and an avocado, olive and tomato baguette myself.) After criticism over rising prices, Pret made some cuts last year. That cheese and pickle baguette is down from £4.99 to £3.99, for example, and filter coffee is just 99p. Halm says: 'This makes Pret a bit different to the crowd. No one else on the high street is giving away anything for less than a pound.' Prices within London can vary, however – it is more expensive to eat in, while branches at airports or train stations are usually pricier than the high street. A £3.99 tuna baguette will set you back £4.50 in a 'transport hub'. A spokesperson for Pret says: 'This is due to higher rents and labour costs for those shops, as they usually require different working hours or higher security checks.' As we wander through the City, we pass many other coffee-and-sandwich chains, but none appear with such regularity as Pret. Once my eye is attuned to its pub-style hanging sign – a white star on a maroon background – I start seeing it everywhere. We head down Fleet Street and Chesher points out one of London's oldest pubs, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese (rebuilt in 1667 after the Great Fire). Right next to it? Pret. We continue on to the Strand and stop at Twinings, the oldest tea shop (opened 1706). The former bank next door? You guessed it – Pret. How does a sandwich shop afford such prime real estate? Pret, unsurprisingly, stopped being a two-man operation long ago. McDonald's bought a 33% stake in the company in 2001. The fast food giant sold its stake to the private equity firm Bridgepoint Capital in 2008, which became the majority shareholder. Bridgepoint, in turn, sold Pret to JAB Holdings, a Luxembourg-based investment fund belonging to Germany's billionaire Reimann family, in 2018 for a reported £1.5bn. All 12,000 Pret employees received a £1,000 payout. (In an interview last year, the CEO, Pano Christou, said staff are paid more than the London Living Wage, including bonuses.) After losses during the pandemic, Pret returned to profitability in 2022. UK sales in 2023 were up 18% year on year; the latest global figures, from the first half of 2024, show a 10% increase, to £569m. 'After Covid, Pret has been on an extreme mission to grow,' says Halm. Its locations – on high streets, by offices, in train stations, at airports – make it very accessible. 'Yes, the high street might look samey, but that's how you establish quality,' she says. 'People want premium options that are reliably good.' Chris Young, the coordinator of the Real Bread Campaign, is more sceptical: 'Chains can plug a gap in a high street, although typically they don't go to a failing high street. It's like the Starbucks effect in the 90s – it would target successful cafes and put them out of business.' Chains have economies of scale to undercut small businesses, he says, and huge marketing power. 'People are drawn to big shiny things and start ignoring the local independent that's been there for years.' But chains don't necessarily benefit the local area, he says: 'The money spent there is going to go whizzing out to fat-cat shareholders or private equity companies.' What about the jobs created when a chain moves in? 'Their food is made in big factories on the edge of town. They create jobs for X number of people in the shop, but they could be better, more skilled jobs,' he says. The spokesperson points out that the Pret Foundation was founded in 1995 to donate unsold food, partner with charities and employ people facing homelessness. They also insist that 'freshly handmade food has always been at the heart of what we do … Long before it was the norm, we were making sandwiches, wraps, baguettes and salads from scratch every morning in our on-site kitchens.' In 2018, however, it was reported that Pret's baguettes were made on an industrial estate in France and frozen for up to a year. Today? 'Our baguettes and rye rolls are brought to shops part-frozen and baked in our shop kitchens, which ensures that our customers get a really crisp and crunchy baguette,' says Pret's spokesperson. 'We want to ensure that the bread we use is consistent every day and from shop to shop.' Yap is not surprised. 'In order for chains to function, they require a certain homogenisation – more ultra-processed foods (UPFs), additives and preservatives – to provide consistency of products across multiple sites,' he says. Even Pret? 'Pret seemed to be doing things differently and better than other companies,' says Young. 'The word 'natural' was in its logo, across the walls and the food.' In 2016, he contacted the company to ask exactly what was in its food (ingredient lists were not yet mandatory). 'It turned out there was a whole list of artificial additives across the range. It was misleading – this was not natural food as anyone would have understood it.' Young complained to the Advertising Standards Agency and Westminster council. 'It took 18 months. In the end, the ASA and Westminster agreed. Pret had to take 'natural' out of its logo.' Pret still emphasises its health credentials. As well as sandwiches, it sells soups, salads, fruit and yoghurt pots. The Prets we pass on our walk advertise its 'feelgood food': 'Nourish your body, lift your spirits … with fresh, wholesome ingredients.' The company prides itself on being ahead of the curve on healthy eating trends. 'We introduced avocado to the high street. Today, avocado is everywhere, but back then it was still a bit of a novelty,' says the spokesperson. 'And we were the first to bring an egg and spinach pot to the UK high street.' Does Pret's food contain UPFs? 'We don't categorise any of our ingredients or products in this way,' says the spokesperson. 'We try to reduce the additives we use in our products. We have replaced the emulsifiers in a number of our bread lines (eg our baguettes) with enzymes, but there are a few lines that still contain emulsifiers (eg our wraps). These have a number of functions, including improving the texture of the bread.' Pret always seems to bounce back from bad press. Recently, customers were up in arms over changes to Club Pret, a subscription that gave members up to five free drinks a day and a 20% discount on food for £30 a month. Last September, it changed to five half-price drinks a day for £5 a month. Far more serious were the deaths of two customers who had allergic reactions to Pret products. In 2016, Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, 15, died after eating a baguette that contained sesame, which wasn't listed on the packaging. In 2017, Celia Marsh, 42, died after eating a flatbread labelled as dairy-free, which contained traces of dairy. Since then, the spokesperson says, Pret has established an industry-leading approach to helping customers with allergies, including developing an allergy plan. The mind-boggling number of branches Chesher and I see on our walk suggests central London may have reached peak Pret – but the outer boroughs certainly haven't. 'For a long time, Pret's strategy was to follow the skyscraper, but now we're following the customer,' says the spokesperson. It has opened shops in London suburbs such as Bromley, Sutton and Harrow, often in bigger premises with outdoor seating. 'We're bringing Pret to people when they're at the office, on the commute, working from home or simply spending time with friends and family.' Chesher sees this 'Pretification' of London as part of a wider trend towards homogenisation. We stop off at Simpsons Tavern, London's oldest chophouse, which opened in 1757 and was controversially closed in 2022 by its Bermuda-based owners, Tavor Holdings (there is a Crowdfunder campaign to reopen it). The boarded-up building is a forlorn sight. Chesher mentions the Prince Charles cinema, a cult venue that is also under threat of closure, and the loss of grassroots music venues. 'Property owners prefer to put a Pret or a Leon in there,' he says. 'We're gradually losing these individual places.' Yap goes further. 'One of the most concerning things about the way our cities are managed is the loss of genuine public space. The way urban space has been financialised is a deep concern for democracy. If that square metre has value as a shopping destination, the government then sells it off or enters into a partnership.' Recently redeveloped parts of London all have 'a certain aesthetic', he says. Young agrees: 'When I want to see local character, colour and food, it's difficult to do that in certain parts of London now.' After our walk, I head north to the Guardian's offices in King's Cross, an area of exactly that kind of redevelopment – much of it classed as the Orwellian-sounding 'privately owned public space'. There are four branches of Pret within 10 minutes' walk of Guardian HQ, one just a few doors away. If you know a part of London that is still missing the maroon sign, you may be either relieved or disappointed to know that the openings may soon dry up. London is no longer Pret's top priority. Since January 2023, 87% of new openings have been outside the capital and more than half have been outside the UK (£1 in every £4 spent at Pret is now international). In 2023, Pret opened 81 new shops worldwide, including in the US, Canada, India, Greece and Spain. New York has the highest sales after London and the first shops recently opened in Johannesburg and Lisbon. Pret, it seems, has conquered the capital. Next stop? The rest of the world. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
