Pret A Manger

A London-born food-to-go chain making fresh sandwiches, coffee and snacks in its shops, with hundreds of UK locations.

About Pret A Manger

Pret A Manger is a food-to-go chain. According to Wikipedia, its sandwiches are made on the day of purchase in a kitchen at each location, with a few small exceptions. It sells sandwiches, salads, soups, snacks and coffee for breakfast and lunch. Some UK shops are run by franchise partners: one job listing says a family-run company called K&Z became a pioneer franchise partner of Pret in 2021 and owns 12 Pret shops across 7 counties.

The first Pret a Manger opened in London on 21 October 1983 at 58 Hampstead High Street, according to Wikipedia, and traded for 18 months before liquidation. Sinclair Beecham and Julian Metcalfe then bought the name and branding and opened their first Pret in July 1986 at 75b Victoria Street, London. The head office is in London, and the company is sometimes known by the address, 75B.

We did not find a mission statement on the pages read. The Pret Foundation, however, was founded in 1995 by Metcalfe and Beecham to help alleviate poverty in the UK. It funds electric vans that deliver unsold food to homeless shelters and has awarded over 7 million pounds to more than 100 charities, according to Wikipedia. Trade press in the search results also describes Pret opening a shop to be run by people who had been homeless and listing Pret roles on a job board for people affected by homelessness.

The UK is Pret's home market. Wikipedia gives 474 UK shops, 369 of them in London, in a September 2025 passage, and 512 UK locations in a section citing April 2024 data, so the figures conflict and should be checked. The infobox lists 12,000 employees for 2018 and the page records the loss of 2,890 UK jobs in 2020, which shows how sensitive the business is to commuter footfall in city centres. Shops named in the franchise listing include Basingstoke, Rushden Lakes and Midsummer Place, which shows Pret shops outside London in towns and retail centres as well as in the capital's commuter districts. Wikipedia also says Pret was founded in London, and that its Pret Foundation vans take unsold food to shelters.

Because each shop makes its own food, roles include team members who work in the kitchen, front of house and on delivery, shop managers, and head office roles in London covering areas such as food development, operations and marketing. The pages we read did not describe these in detail, so check Pret's own careers page for current roles.

What they do

• {'desc': 'Sandwiches and salads made in the shop kitchen each day.', 'title': 'Fresh shop-made food'}
• {'desc': 'Hot and cold drinks alongside food.', 'title': 'Coffee and drinks'}
• {'desc': 'Charity funding to relieve poverty and deliver unsold food.', 'title': 'Pret Foundation'}

Key facts

• Early Pret opened in 1983; Beecham and Metcalfe opened their first in 1986 at Victoria Street, London
• Pret Foundation founded 1995
• 474 to 512 UK shops depending on source, most in London (Wikipedia)
• Head office in London

Website: www.pret.co.uk