Pret A Manger earnings up 14.5%
The brand reported its financial results for the 52 weeks to 31st December 2015.
According to the results, the company's group sales rose13.9% to £676.2 million (+7.5% like-for-like), while EBITDA was up 14.5% to £84.3 million.
Clive Schlee, Chief Executive of Pret A Manger, said: “These results represent another year of record sales for Pret. The highlights were a strong performance in the US – our newly opened Penn Station shop has the highest sales per square foot of any Pret in the world – and the opening of two very busy transport hub shops in Paris’ Gare de Lyon station and Nice Airport. Pret continues to grow steadily in the UK, adapting its menu to meet demand for healthy options.”
Pret also released insights about its UK market trends:
- 58% of sales outside of lunchtime, on the back of increased demand for breakfast on-the-go
- 14% of sales from new food and drink items developed in the last year, mostly non-bread
- Vegetarian sales showed double digit growth
- Avocado was the fastest-growing ingredient: customers ate five million in total
- 65% of all card payments are now contactless
According to Pret, 14% of total sales came from food and drink items introduced in the last year. New ranges include its grain-based SuperBowl salads. The best seller is a vegetarian Beets, Squash & Feta SuperBowl, selling 17,000 a week and out-performing both chicken and salmon options.
The US was Pret’s fastest growing market last year, achieving +13.8% like-for-like sales growth, driven by improvements in the quality of ingredients and innovation in salads and breakfast items. Opening larger shops in prime locations has also helped to grow sales.
Transport hubs continue to perform very well and Pret opened new shops in key locations, including Penn Station in New York, Nice Airport and Gare de Lyon station in Paris. A shop in Dubai International Airport also opened earlier this year.
During 2015 Pret opened 36 new shops: 23 in the UK (of which 12 were outside London), 6 in the US, 4 in France and 3 in Hong Kong. The total number of shops at the end of 2015 was 399, of which 303 were in the UK, 65 in the USA, 16 in Hong Kong, 14 in France and one in China.
Pret A Manger’s CEO, Clive Schlee, said: “Last year thousands of customers told us they were trying to eat less meat. This year we have challenged ourselves to increase our vegetarian options in all shops, as well as opening a veggie-only pop-up shop to learn more from our customers. We will of course still focus on the essentials: engagement of our wonderful team members, the freshness and quality of our ingredients, and securing top class locations around the world. This gives us confidence for the year ahead.”
