Over the last two years Pret a Manger's chefs have expanded the brand's veggie and vegan and now veggie-only fridges are to be installed in outlets across the country for one month. If the fridges prove popular, they will be kept there for the summer.
There sandwich chain hopes that the trial may even help influence the location of any future Veggie Prets, the company's vegetarian and vegan-only stores.
CEO Clive Schlee said, 'Two years ago I invited consumers to vote on how Pret should respond to the growing interest in meat-free food. Should we open a vegetarian-only Pret, put a veggie fridge into every shop, or do nothing at all? Fridges narrowly won the 10,000 respondent's vote but we couldn’t resist the bigger challenge for our chefs, so we opened a Veggie Pret pop up instead.
'Since then we’ve opened two permanent Veggie Pret shops in London and taken our ‘Not Just For Veggies’ menu and campaign to Pret shops across the UK, US, Hong Kong and France. We’ve learned that vegetarian food has to be delicious to win over meat-eaters.
'Our chefs have focused on creating new recipes that are full of flavour, colour and texture. It seems to be working – quite surprisingly, over half of the customers in our Veggie Pret shops are meat-eaters; and new ranges such as our Veggie Boxes, packed with ingredients like turmeric cauliflower and sweet potato falafels, are out-selling meaty options.
Schlee continued, 'Our chefs have expanded Pret’s veggie and vegan offering to such an extent that we can now honour the outcome of the original vote: we will be installing veggie-only fridges in shops up and down the country for one month. If you like them, we’ll keep them in place for the summer.
'The bold green fridges will be accompanied by monthly veggie and vegan Chef’s Specials and a new campaign which aims to encourage more meat eaters to try our veggie options. This approach does carry some risk and we are treading carefully. I’m curious if our veggie menu will appeal more or less to customers when highlighted in a single fridge. Will it attract or deter our regular meat-eaters? We’ll be monitoring your feedback and the sales very closely.'