Dear Customer,

Rest assured, the welfare of the chickens Pret A Manger elects to buy is of considerable importance to me.

All of us at Pret think the recent publicity, the research and knock-on effects are, whilst shocking, long overdue.

We refer to our chickens as 'open barn'. By 'open barn' we mean lower density, plenty of natural light and freedom to wander.

The chickens we buy are raised in airy, open-sided sheds. They do not stand around in their faeces. The idea of 'processing' chickens crammed into tiny cages with no room and no daylight is abhorrent to us.

We do not allow our farms to employ a routine use of antibiotics. The feed the chickens are given is GM-free, natural, vegetarian. Basically maize, wheat and soybeans.

Our London test shops use free-range 'Devonshire Red' chickens. Slow growing and reared only in the West Country in large, grassy paddocks shaded with trees and shrubs, our birds are free to forage and scratch around all day long. Whether or not our customers will pay the extra to have UK-sourced free-range...we shall see. Our Free-Range Chicken & Rocket sandwich sells for £3.75...research tells us that we'd lose the majority of our customers if we insisted on selling only expensive sandwiches like this (even if we could source enough free-range chicken to make them). Maybe we'll end up with both free-range and open barn and let you, the customer, decide.

The fact is, Pret introduced organic milk, free-range eggs and endless other preservative-free ingredients long before the 'market' generally considered them appropriate. We will continue to pioneer preservative-free, natural food as well as trying to run an efficient business with delicious products and proud staff.

Not always easy.

Simon Hargraves
Commercial Director
020 7827 8672

For more information on sustainability at Pret, please click here.