One in 10 Pret stores may not reopen

06 July 2020 by
One in 10 Pret stores may not reopen

Around 5-10% of Pret stores in the UK could close, the sandwich chain's chief executive Pano Christou said in an interview with The Sunday Times.

The group, which has 410 stores and 8,000 staff, is due to outline the scale of job cuts this week. Christou (pictured) said he was having "sleepless nights" about having to tell staff of the impending job losses.

"There's no easy way round this," he told the publication. "It depends come September if the business recovers or not. Clearly we can't keep people on that we would have if business was back at 100%."

Pret A Manger appointed advisers last month to lead rent renegotiations with landlords. Alvarez & Marsal and CWM have been advising the grab-and-go chain on a "comprehensive transformation plan".

At the time, Christou said: "Like the rest of the industry, we have been radically adapting our business model to succeed in the face of the changing market conditions. Reduced footfall, combined with high rental costs, have placed substantial pressure on our business.

"We are putting together a clear plan to address these issues and are already making good progress, with more than 300 shops up and running again as of next week. While Pret may look and feel a bit different in the short term, if we take the right steps today, we'll make sure Pret can thrive in the future and serve even more customers with great food and coffee."

The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking