If you’re after a quick lunch of solid quality and a delicious coffee with which to wash it down, you could do a lot worse than Pret A Manger.
The coffee shop is practically synonymous with the streets of London, with it being a rare occasion indeed if you’re more than a 10 minute walk away from one in the city.
Despite catering to heavy foot traffic across its hundreds of London stores each day, Pret does also have a reputation for being a little pricey.
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It seems that reputation has compounded unfavourably with Pret’s new grub lineup, with a new range of ‘Super Plates’ hitting its stores.
They’re essentially fancy salad bowls, with Pret saying it’s experienced a strong increase in salad bowl sales in recent years.
These new Super Plates are jumping on that uptick as well as expanded Pret’s range of nutritious lunch options. However, it hasn’t gone unnoticed that they start at £9.95 and can go up to £12.95 for the heaviest hitters.
Those options include Chipotle Chicken, Miso Salmon, Butternut Mezze, and Shawarma Chicken, with Pret saying each was ‘carefully crafted by Pret’s in house head of food and registered nutritionist to keep you fuller for longer’.
They’re around 60% larger than the chain’s existing salad bowls and each weigh around 450g, so you’re getting a hefty portion for the price. Pret has also stressed that it’s using high quality ingredients in these bowls, with pomegranate seeds, hand-massaged kale, black bean mole and quinoa, and Togarashi spiced seeds being among the ingredients lists.
“With a rise in popularity amongst Brits for larger, more nutrient dense salads we carefully crafted our brand-new ‘Super Plates’ category,” said Briony Raven, chief customer and product officer at Pret A Manger.
“Our range of protein-packed options, made with premium ingredients, are perfect for when you’re quickly grabbing lunch on-the-go. This new category is a significant step-change in our lunchtime line-up, which we believe will continue the growth we’ve seen in our existing salads range.”
Of course, social media rarely misses an opportunity to froth over prices north of what you’d expect for a meal deal, and so it’s proven with this new Pret range.
“Cool. As long as they think someone with too much money will pay it. I won’t be,” said one head-shaker.
“Are they joking?” spat another X user.
“£13 for some leaves and a small amount of dressing?” said another with a kind of anti-hyperbole.
“I could make myself that for a week for £13!” said another. The point of buying packaged grub is, of course, largely that you don’t have to make it yourself.
The new Super Plates are now available at Pret A Manger outlets up and down the country.
A Pret spokesperson told FOODBible: “Our Super Plates range starts from £9.95 and are nearly 60% bigger than our current salads range, filled with new, unique premium ingredients and with more protein and fibre. These are freshly prepared in our shops every day and take longer to make than our typical baguettes and salads, which is all reflected in the price. We have ensured our new Super Plates are priced competitively within the market for this type of lunchtime offer."
Rachael Davis