Pret’s £500m loss and the challenger brands eating Britain’s lunch

Pret’s £500m loss and the challenger brands eating Britain’s lunch

Pret A Manger’s recent announcement that it was scrapping its self-service coffee machines to focus on opening more traditional stores came against the backdrop of a £525m loss. The decision to pull machines across the UK just four years after launch represents more than a failed experiment. It’s a retreat that reveals something fundamental about how established brands are struggling whilst challengers surge. While Pret goes back to basics, chal…