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Prêt a Manger
Prêt is a sandwich shop. Indeed its aluminium interiors, accessed through a doorway heralding that it is "passionate about food" makes it unlike a normal sandwich shop.
College friends Sinclair Beecham and Julian Metcalfe set up Prêt a Manger in 1986 with woefully little experience in the world of business. They created the sort of food the craved but couldn't find anywhere else. They have succeeded too, as the chain has since grown to over 130 shops, mostly in the UK, but also in New York and Hong Kong.
"It's important our sandwiches and sales taste better than anyone else's"
To achieve this Prêt builds a full kitchen at the back of every store. Suppliers are required to delivered fresh ingredients late every night, then early the following morning Pret's chefs get busy making the best sandwiches, wraps, pastries and cakes. There are no "shelf life" or "display until" dates on Prêt sandwiches, as everything is fresh and made on the day, for the day.
"Prêt creates hand made, natural food, avoiding the obscure chemicals, additives and preservatives common to so much of the "prepared" and "fast" food on the market today"
Source: Label on a Pret sandwich
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Passion lies at the heart of the brand. Passion for the food they make, and people they employ. Indeed go to their website, and their "Passion Facts" describe their passion for natural quality foods that are free from additives and preservatives, for freshness by ensuring that all food is made fresh in the shop, and for improvement, constantly seeking to make a better sandwich with the help of customers.
Despite a minority investment in the business by McDonalds, Prêt rejects the conventions of most fast food brands. Not only does it not offer "with fries", but it also rejects the mass-marketing concepts such as advertising, franchising, or even focus groups. Indeed Prêt has learnt by trial and error what works best. In the USA, for example, Prêt found no demand for its All Day Breakfast sandwich, had to swap butter for cream cheese with smoked salmon. However the very-British coronation chicken with mango chutney sandwich was a big hit in the Big Apple.
Prêt offers good jobs to great people who want to make and sell fabulous food. They invest in their people through training, incentives and rewards, paying them well above the average wage for the sector. Working at Prêt is fun. They work as a team, they enjoy what they do, they play funky music all day, they wear their own jeans, and they love what they sell.
The service passion of Prêt is established by a culture that treats and rewards employees as equals. Walk into a Prêt store at 8am on a Monday morning and the funky music immediately captures the mood of the staff. The service is frantic but friendly and personal. Staff are taking orders, brewing coffee and taking the latest bread and pastries out of the oven simultaneously. It's a great buzz, which is contagious for customers too, and one that continues throughout the week to the infamous staff Friday nights out. Although customers aren't invited to those.
The Prêt culture isn't scripted or engineered. It is just real and human, frantic and fun.
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