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Sandwich chain Pret A Manger is to cut 2800 jobs, affecting more than a third of its workforce in a bid to survive.
The announcement signals the completion of a two month consultation period and the restructuring of the UK business which saw 30 its shops close permanently.
It comes as Pret reveals the crisis and subsequent lockdown has wiped out ten years of growth putting weekly sales back to £5m, the level they were at in August 2010.
The job cuts will primarily affect those members of staff who work in-store, with 90 employees also laid off from central support teams.
Thousands of the remaining 6,000 staff have reduced their hours in order to preserve a further 1,000 roles as transactions levels remain low and opening hours continue to be reduced.
Despite trade being down 60% across the business year on year, Pret said there are signs of recovery as weekly sales have grown on average by around 7% since the end of July.
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Morning update
In this week’s edition of The Grocer we have the latest on talks to save kids’ meal brand Kiddyum after it entered liquidation, an analysis of the declining fortunes of Thornton’s since it was bought by Ferrero, how the food and drink sector is set for an autumn M&A boom and more.
On the markets this morning, the FTSE 100 has fallen a further 0.3% back to 5,980.5pts.
Early fallers include Naked Wines, down 2.8% to 439.1p, Just Eat Takeaway.com, down 2.5% to 8,363.2p and Glanbia, down 2.4% to €9.47.
Risers include Bakkavor, up 4% to 64.2p, Hotel Chocolat, up 3.1% to 330p and Devro, up 2% to 186.4p.
Yesterday in the City
The FTSE 100 edged back below 6,000pts to close down 0.8% at 5,999.99pts.
Ocado edged down 0.6% to 2,520p after the departure of its CFO Duncan Tatton-Brown was announced.
Other fallers included Naked Wines, down 2.4% to 451.5p, FeverTree, down 2.3% to 2,065p, Nichols, down 1.8% to 1,247.5p, Just Eat Takeaway.com, down 1.7% to 8,580p and Hotel Chocolat, down 1.5% to 320p.
Risers include Total Produce, up 9.5% t 101.5p, SSP Group, up 4.5% to 240.4p, Compass Group, up 4.5% to 1,213.5p, Greencore, up 2.3% to 128p and WH Smith, up 2% to 1,151p.
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