Pret a Manger is handing all its British staff a bonus and a pay rise as it enjoys strong sales thanks to the growing demand for food on the go.
Sales are expected to rise 17% this year as the privately owned sandwich chain rakes in more than £10m a week in the UK and heads into mainland China for the first time.
Pret is benefiting from the change in habits towards eating on the go, which is adding to pressure on supermarkets such as Tesco and Morrisons, which are already suffering from the rise of discount and convenience stores.
Clive Schlee, chief executive, said: “The improved economy has helped us but the main driver is that people eat more throughout the day. It’s not just at lunchtime but in the afternoon and early evenings.”
Sales at UK stores open more than a year are up 10%.
He said Pret was boosting performance with new ideas such as macaroni cheese, which has lifted sales by up to 3%. The chain is selling 50,000 boxes of prosciutto or kale and cauliflower-flavoured pasta a week. Fruit smoothies and cold pressed juices helped sales in the summer and in January, Schlee is planning to introduce hotpot stews to the mix.
The group’s 6,000 British staff will all receive a £50 bonus next month. They will also get a 1.5% pay rise, taking their pay to £6.90 an hour – 40p above the national minimum wage – as a “gesture to ensure the money goes to team members doing all the work,” according to Schlee.
The vast majority of staff also regularly earn a £1-an-hour bonus based on customer service assessments, which takes their pay above the living wage calculated by workers rights campaigners.
Pret, which is co-owned by its founders, managers and private equity firm Bridgepoint Capital, is opening or expanding 25 stores a year in the UK and adding 15 more overseas annually.
Schlee said Pret’s first store in China was already open with a quarter of the Shanghai-based outlet’s sales made up of coffee.
He added: “Anything with avocado is selling well. People say it is hard to get fresh food there.” Pret, which already has outlets in Hong Kong, the US and France, will open two more stores in Shanghai in the next 12 months before deciding whether to expand further.
