Pret to accelerate growth in UK and key international markets as global system sales increase to £1.2bn: Pret A Manger has said it will accelerate its growth in the UK and key international markets after its global sales increased by 10% in 2024. The company also said it is planning further food innovation as its Super Plates initiative, launched in July, has driven customer visits, especially in London. Pret also said it will double down on increasing its food-to-go market share, including plans to test meal deal formats in the fourth quarter of 2025. The company said worldwide system sales across its company-owned and franchise shops reached £1.2bn for the year, up 10% versus 2023, and that like for like sales grew 2.8%, with Pret reaching 717 shops globally and seeing 11% net shop growth. Pre-IFRS16 adjusted Ebitda grew 36% to £98m (2023: £72m), while a non-cash goodwill impairment of £552.9m related to JAB’s acquisition of the business in 2018. No impairment has previously been recorded, but management considers 2024 to be the first year since the start of covid with consistent trading data on which to base future forecasts. The impairment takes into account the currently uncertain global macro-economic environment, the additional bills introduced in the 2024 autumn Budget and results, in part, from the use of a higher discount rate than was used in previous calculations. The company said: “Backed by a strengthened board, led by recently appointed chairman José Cil, and bringing in further world-class talent to bolster a more streamlined management team, the business’ priority will now be on delivering sustainable growth by growing market share in its home market of the UK and expanding in the US, with a particular focus on travel hubs and city centres. New York continues to be the overseas capital for Pret customers, with the US business now led by food industry veteran Felipe Athayde, previously from Authentic Restaurant Brands and Restaurant Brands International. Delivering value for money for customers will continue to be core to Pret’s offer. The repositioning of Club Pret, the brand’s coffee subscription offering customers 50% off up to five barista-prepared drinks each day for just £5 a month, has continued to attract Pret’s most loyal coffee customers, while also enabling the business to absorb around £25m of inflation in labour, food, and operational costs. Looking ahead, the company will test new meal deal formats in the fourth quarter of 2025 to tap into the UK’s growing appetite for these deals and to provide more value-driven options for customers. The UK will also see further investment in food innovation, following the successful introduction of Super Plates in the UK in July, a new premium range of bigger, high protein and nutrient rich salads, which are already driving incremental customer visits.” Chief executive Pano Christou added: “2024 was another year of growth for Pret, where we took disciplined decisions to protect sales, despite intense strains on the hospitality industry. Going forward, our priority will be to drive transactions and sustainable growth by offering great value for money for Pret customers. Our focus will be on growing Pret’s market share in the UK and internationally, prioritising city centres and travel hubs, backed by the experience and expertise of additional world-class board members and a strengthened management team. I would like to take a moment to thank our team members for their continued commitment and energy as we write the coming next chapters of the Pret story.”

I think our customers are more price conscious than ever, and I think we have a fantastic opportunity. From a pricing perspective, we’ve had pricing way lower than inflation this year and last year, and with bundles for meal deals, which we’ll be testing from 16 September onwards in about 70 stores, that starts to give us a place of where we look to drive value as we move into 2026. But that’s not the only place – over time, we’re looking at loyalty and how we use loyalty to drive repeat custom, promotional activities etc. We have seven different meal deal tests across two dayparts. One will be a croissant and coffee – one priced at £4.50 and one at £5. Lunch will be in three parts – drink, crisps and any bread-based sandwich for between £6 and £7. We have done this in other markets but not in the UK. It has done fantastically well in France. There is an opportunity to really double down on that and give our customers the best value they’ve ever had. But meal deals are just one aspect of a multi-faceted plan to continue to engage our customers. There’s innovation at the core, with new platform innovations like Super Plates. I think we see the role of loyalty being a big part of Pret as we go forwards into the future.

Salad is a growing segment, and we want to be part of that growth. I think the launch of the Super Plates in July was kind of our first foray into growing that out. And what we have seen in this is bringing in a different customer. So, we are seeing an extra 15 incremental transactions per day per store that we are putting these products in, and that continues to grow as the weeks go by. Then you look at our core salad range, and we have plan to elevate that going into next spring/summer. Salads is a very important part of our menu – we have a broad church to offer consumers which allows them to one day be indulgent, and one day be health conscious. Nothing to do with weight loss drugs whatsoever, it’s just where we’ve seen the segment grow through our own data and research. Super Plates have done fantastically well, between 20-30% better in respective units than we had planned. We only launched it in 50% of our estate, and through the summer we have been increasing that each month.

At the moment we have about 140 franchise stores and about 360 equity stores. We do see that by way of of new units, our franchising will grow at a faster level than our company owned. We still invest our own capital in growing out, but a function of the amount of franchise partners we have just sees that accelerate. We have three roadside partners and a few regional partners as well that are growing the brand out. It’s not really focused on the mix, so to speak. As it stands, the focus is on ensuring that as we grow, we add the same sort of sales growth, which feeds into our franchise partners. They are doing well and reinvesting that into the continued growth of the brand across the UK. There are many brands today that are in the domain of 1,000-2,000 locations, and I think there should be no reason at all why Pret can’t be one of those. We have seven partners in the UK, and I’m a big fan of fewer, bigger, better partners. I think in any franchise system you might have people coming in and coming out all the time, but as we look to the future, that could change.

We currently have around 500 stores in the UK and we believe we can get to 1,000 to 1,500 locations. And that is by being focused on urban city centres and transport locations. Our fastest growing segment in the UK is roadside locations. Five years ago we had one; today we have more than 50. Customers love the brand on the go. People are coming back into the towns and into offices, and that is giving us the confidence to continue to grow within those jurisdictions. Our travel business has really exploded in recent years. We have eight locations at Heathrow airport and we’re going to go for another two locations next year. For those who travel through T5, you see a massive Costa Coffee when you walk out, and that’s going to become a Pret early next year.

If you look at the US, we are a smidge of a brand in terms of size, in the largest QSR market in the world. We are 70 locations, just over $100m, so the opportunity for us to grow in our full jurisdiction, which is the east coast of the US, in transport locations is where we’ll be focusing in the next few years. We’ll be opening five locations in JFK airport at the back end of this year and next year we’ve got some fantastic sites opening in roadside, train station and airport locations across the US. Our research shows that grab-and-go is something that is akin to the US consumer, which gives us some confidence. That’s where we see real opportunity to grow value. We think we can do north of £1bn in system wide sales in the US market.

Still too early for conclusions, but consumers seem to love the environment and the look and feel. There’s still some work we want to do on the product and operations side of things. Going back to the points about long term growth in the UK, this was a test to learn, and a lot of the stuff has been taken over into the core business from our regional shops. It’s a test bed, and one thing you will see from Pret going into 2026 and beyond is many more tests as we try to understand how we continue to grow and continue to offer our customers great value.

I’ve been around London today on a Lime bike and it seems to be very busy in terms of people on the streets. Clearly rail strikes have an impact on the business, but I get a real sense this time round that people are really trying harder to come in and work against that. Clearly there will be an impact to our stores slightly, but the public are really voting with their feet and trying to take those steps to come into town.

First and foremost, it’s important to acknowledge the fantastic job Clare has done for the Pret family over the past 15 years, and I’m forever thankful for the impact she has had on the business. In terms of the UK market, there will be a successor announced in the short term, but we’re not ready to share that yet.