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| Pret to boost veg appeal with Eat deal | |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| Pret a Manger is buying food chain Eat in what its chief executive says is an effort to "turbo-charge" its Veggie Pret chain. | |
| Clive Schlee said the purpose of the deal was to meet demand from vegetarian and vegan customers. | Clive Schlee said the purpose of the deal was to meet demand from vegetarian and vegan customers. |
| Pret, which has 400 stores in the UK, has four branded as Veggie Pret and aims to convert as many of the 90 Eat stores as possible to the new brand. | |
| The two companies are private equity-owned and no price was disclosed. | The two companies are private equity-owned and no price was disclosed. |
| The first Veggie Pret was opened in September 2016 as a month-long pop-up in London's Soho, but it ended up becoming permanent. | |
| Mr Schlee later wrote in a blog that the Veggie Pret had been opened as an "experiment, never imagining it would be around for more than a month". | |
| The first one outside London was opened in Manchester last year. Its expansion comes at a time when plant-based foods are increasing in popularity. | |
| "The acquisition of the Eat estate is a wonderful opportunity to turbo-charge the development of Veggie Pret and put significant resources behind it," he said. | |
| Shares in US company Beyond Meat soared at this month's stock market debut. | |
| Pret said it would notify the Competition and Markets Authority of the deal. | |
| Pret a Manger was sold by Bridgepoint to Luxembourg-based JAB Holdings last year. As a result, all 12,000 staff employees received a £1,000 bonus. | |
| Loss-making Eat was owned by Horizon Capital and it is not yet clear what the implications are for its staff. | |
| Last year, Pret said it would list all ingredients, including allergens, on its freshly made products following the death of a teenager who had an allergic reaction after eating a Pret sandwich. | |
| Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, 15, went into cardiac arrest on a flight after buying a sandwich at Heathrow Airport in 2016. |