Popular Canadian foodservice brand A&W is launching a pilot project to introduce the UK-based Pret A Manger sandwich and coffee chain to the Canadian market.
Susan Senecal, President and CEO of A&W, said the partnership with Pret allows the foodservice giant to test offering the best of Pret at A&W restaurants in about 12 to 15 locations starting in 2022 “to introduce Canadians to the great taste, the great ingredients and the great products that Pret offers.”
“Pret A Manger is a UK-based chain. They operate lots of ‘shops’ as they call them that offer ready-to-eat, ready-to-go, pick up and go style sandwiches, salads, soups and organic fair trade coffee,” said Senecal.
“They’re an exciting brand and they don’t have a presence yet in Canada so we thought it would be nice to bring along a select menu of Pret’s to A&W into Canada.”
“We’re still in the early part of development of exactly how it’s going to look and that will come to life as we start to introduce this in the year to come. We want to give a piece of the experience as well. So it will be not only products but experience and we’ll have some dedicated areas that will really feature the menu items from Pret so that people can easily pick them up and get ready for their day.”
Senecal said the initial part of the launch involves introducing Pret to Canada and Canada to Pret.
“We’re looking at it as a nice way to bring an introduction of the brand and its products. We think it’s a nice time when people are looking for things to speed up their day but also a variety of items and we think we can offer that to our guests who already come to A&W for great food and great burgers. This will give us another option,” she said.
There are just over 1,000 A&W locations in Canada today.
“We’re growing quite quickly. Last year we opened 23. This year we’re back into the 30s in terms of our openings. We’ve opened as many as 50 in a year a couple of years back. We’re on a good pace of expansion and there’s lots of places where there’s not an A&W yet,” said Senecal.
She said everyone and all businesses have been impacted during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. For A&W, restaurants that were in shopping centres, for example, many were completely closed at the peak of the pandemic – more than 200 restaurants.
“Some downtown cores, high pedestrian areas, some universities closed down, some airports closed down. There was a lot of turmoil and a lot of impact as governments moved to keep people safe and as people stayed home to make sure that they were doing the most cautious thing possible,” she said.
“All of that had a bit of a shift in terms of how consumers are looking for food. On the flip side of it, in our drive-thru locations, we were able to continue through the pandemic in most cases and we were able to continue serving guests and in a lot of cases that became more of a necessity for a lot of people because there was very limited availability and if you were a person that needed to get out and about it wasn’t as easy as it once was.”
Senecal said for consumers today convenience is important. There are new ways to get that convenience with things like a mobile app and delivery.
“Still at the heart of it all is a restaurant that uses great food to make great food,” she said.
Image: Pret a Manger 
Image: Pret a Manger
“We’re known as innovators. Over the years, we’ve led the pace when it comes to innovation. Most of the innovation we’ve done in house. This one is a little bit different but we look forward to what we can learn and I think people are looking for something new – they’re looking for something different. This is an opportunity to grab a taste of something that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to get. And I suspect that the freshly made Pret food will meet the needs of a lot of our guests and offer a lot of people something different and something really good.”
A&W Food Services of Canada Inc. is a corporation amalgamated under the laws of Canada and is 100 per cent Canadian owned and is one of the strongest brand names in the Canadian foodservice industry. A&W is the nation’s second largest hamburger restaurant company with over 1,000 locations coast-to-coast. A&W Restaurants feature famous trade-marked menu items such as The Burger Family®, Chubby Chicken®, and A&W Root Beer®.
Pret A Manger’s first shop opened in London in 1986. Pret’s sandwiches, salads and wraps are freshly made each day in shop kitchens and all coffees are 100 per cent organic. Pret currently has more than 450 shops and operates in the UK, US, Hong Kong, France, Dubai, Switzerland, Brussels, Singapore and Germany.
Brokerage Oberfeld Snowcap represents A&W in Canada.
I’d be curious to know if A&W plans on opening freestanding Pret-A-Manger locations if the pilot goes well. Or if they just see the partnership limited to a few Pret items on A&W menus nationwide.