Excuse my French - Pret a Manger

Working in the middle of Soho, the opportunities for my lunch break are endless. With Berwick Street market just round the corner, boasting delicacies from around the world and an interesting healthy eating cafe on every corner, I am certainly spoilt for choice. However, being the traditionalist I am, I can never break away from my favourite lunch destination; Pret a Manger. With its hot meatball wraps, variety of salads and array of sandwiches, I'm tempted back there every time.

Pret a Manger finds itself in a strange niche of Britain's 'fast food' industry. With it's pretentious French name despite it having no food from France on the menu, Pret allows itself to masquerade as feeding a bourgeois metropolitan audience. However, it's clientele being mainly city workers seeking breakfast on the run or a quick lunchtime fix challenge their middle class aesthetics. The restaurants/cafes being part of a chain means it loses its originality and appeal to the hipsters of London today who wish to support independent stores. The uniqueness of a fashionable eatery is key. However, the cost of a simple sandwich seems somewhat overpriced in order to keep their intended audience interested, possibly kidding them into thinking they are consuming something more complex than what's inside the packaging.

Its focus on health and what's good for the consumer is plastered all around the store and the food. Slogans such as "diets are sad. Instead enjoy proper food, three times a day" appeal to the health conscious that seem to preoccupy the entirety of London. Whilst the salads rapidly disappear the lonely sandwiches remain on the shelves - customers scared of devil bread and the carbohydrate sins they produce. The calorie count of each product is listed next to its description, reminding the reader of the crime they are about to commit. However, it's claim to only sell "proper food" is contrasted by some of the goods on offer. Crisps, croissants (ok, so they do sell ONE traditionally French food) and cake are all available - of course only intended to be eaten in small doses like some sort of fatty drug. They offer 'healthy' alternatives to the calorie filled snacks such as mango slices and nuts, all packaged in a 'little bag' to reassure the consumer they are not over-eating.

The ingredients used in the dishes are admittedly more special than what you would find in a supermarket's lunchtime section. A variety of seafood such as prawns, salmon and 'dolphin friendly tuna' are all available to accompany your seeded bread. They also offer seasonal products such as turkey and cranberry fillings around Christmas and only offer nectarines and more exotic fruits when available in the summer months.

Pret a Manger appears to be very environmentally conscious. They commit to giving all their leftover food to the homeless and donate money to the cause, thus making the consumer feel good about purchasing. As well as this, their napkins are 100% recyclable and handed out sparingly by their employees so as not to waste paper.

Another way in which they help their audience to feel comfortable is through their sense of humour and overly chatty attitude. The marketing material speaks to you like your closest friend, "if Pret staff get all serviette-ish please give them the evil eye" encouraging the customer to believe they are not just another food chain.

Their annoyingly over excitable packaging, pretentious use of a foreign language to appeal to a certain audience and obsession with healthy eating despite outing diets are all annoying qualities of Pret a Manger. However, either they are not annoying enough, or their meatball wraps are simply too good as all that writing this blog entry has done has made me crave one. Pret, here I come!