Pret A Manger's Turn Around and Recovery and Cost-Cutting Measures

CASE STUDY: PRET A MANGER
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Case Study: Pret A Manger
Case Study Description
Overview
Pret A Manger, commonly known as a Pret, has been on a simple mission since it was first established in 1986. The mission has been “to serve freshly made food and good organic coffee, whilst also trying to do the right thing (Pret, n.d.).” Pret has been a go-to food chain for most workers in the city. In recent years, Pret restaurants and outlets have become a common sight in the city of London and across the United Kingdom (UK). Exhibit 1 shows the number of stores that Pret has had in the UK since 2014. Between 2014 and 2018, Pret opened up over 100 additional stores in the UK alone. It also had outlets in other countries. However, the number of stores has declined considerably in 2021 due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. There have been changes in the market demand as a result of the pandemic. When the pandemic hit, a lot of people were forced to work from home. As a result, the number of Pret’s customers, who were mostly office workers in central London, declined significantly.
Past Responses to Changes in Market Demand
In 2019, Pret had to make certain changes in strategy because of changes in market demand as well as competition. More customers have become health-conscious and are interested in menus that are healthier. In the UK, restaurants and fast-food chains are known as the main sources of unhealthy food (Commetric, 2019). As more consumers began realising this, restaurants and fast-food chains were forced to re-evaluate their menus. According to an article published in the Guardian by Butler (2019), about 12.5% of Britons are vegan or vegetarian and 21% prefer a diet that is more vegetable-based than meat-based. Given that Pret’s main diets were mainly meat-based, the company had to make certain changes to accommodate the changes in consumer preferences. At the beginning of 2019, Pret had four vegetarian outlets, one in Manchester and three in London (Butler, 2019). In response, to changing market demands, Pret acquired one of its smaller competitors, known as EAT. The plan was to change all the EAT outlets, mostly based in London, into vegetarian outlets (Sangameswaran & Hussain, 2019). This move was set in motion to allow Pret to meet the needs of health-conscious customers.
The COVID-19 Pandemic and its Effect on Market Demand
In 2020, many businesses were hit hard as the world came to a standstill due to COVID-19. As people tried to observe health measures of social distancing and working from to limit infection rates, businesses had to re-evaluate their strategy.
Pret suffered greatly as a result of market changes due to the pandemic. According to an article published by Bedingfield (2020) in the Wired UK, the company closed 28 shops in 2020 and lost a third of its workforce as a result of job cuts. The company announced that within a few weeks, it had lost years of growth and expansion. In the past several years, the company had experienced significant growth by opening up new outlets as well as acquiring smaller rivals such as EAT. However, EAT outlets, which had been designated as vegetarian outlets fo...