Pret A Manger reports LfLs up 9.7%: Pret A Manger has reported like-for-like sales rose 9.7% in the year to 1 January 2015, with sales up 16% to £594m. Its coffee sales have hit the one million a week mark with revenues also boosted by new products ranging from comforting pasta to health-conscious quinoa. Macaroni cheese sales have the 50,000 per week mark since launching in October 2014. Ebitda rose 14% to £76m. Pret said that 12% of total sales came from products developed in the last year. Highlighting how it is increasingly catering for health-conscious customers, Pret added that its Green Goodness juices now out-perform its signature chicken and avocado sandwich with vegetarian range now standing at more than 40 items. “These are a strong set of results and represent another successful year for Pret,” said Clive Schlee, chief executive of Pret A Manger. “With double digit growth achieved in virtually all of our markets, we continued our measured expansion of the business by remaining faithful to our core values and by responding to customer demand for innovative, healthy and hot food. Our Pret Foundation Trust also raised record sums and we distributed three million salads and sandwiches to charities for the homeless”. The company now has 288 shops in the UK, 60 in the USA, 14 in Hong Kong, 11 in France and one in China.

McDonald’s begins trial of all-day breakfast: McDonald’s has begun a trial of all-day breakfast, in San Diego, California – the standard end of breakfast is around 10.30am across the business at the moment. The all-day breakfast menu is limited to nine items and McCafé drinks. Customers can get egg McMuffin, sausage McMuffin with egg, sausage burrito, sausage McMuffin, hash brown and hotcakes, oatmeal and yoghurt all day. McGriddles, cakes and steak, egg and cheese bagels have been left off the menu. McDonald’s struggles to cook sausage and eggs at the same time as burgers and chicken. A McDonald’s employee told BurgerBusiness.com that McDonald’s cooks everything on the grill, rather than in the microwave, which means they don’t have enough space to cook all the breakfast. McDonald’s has already experimented with extending their breakfast menu. In 2012, they tested breakfast from midnight until 5am. This later became the McDonald’s after midnight menu.