Pret A Manger hikes price of its subscription service to £30

Pret A Manger has hiked the price of its five-a-day coffee subscription service by 20% to £30 a month.

The sandwich and coffee chain said the new deal would also entitle customers to 10% off every item of food or drink sold in its outlets.

Pret a Manger launched the subscription in September 2020 after sales plunged during Covid lockdowns.

On Wednesday it told subscribers the rise was down to the jump in the cost of ingredients, pay and energy.

According to latest figures, inflation - the increase in the price of something over time - was 10.1% in the year to March.

However, prices of food and non-alcoholic drinks jumped 19.1% in March, the biggest rise since August 1977.

Last month, Pret announced it was giving staff struggling with the high cost of living their third pay rise in a year, amounting to an increase of 19% in year-on-year pay for shop staff.

• Why are prices rising so much?

• Pret A Manger gives staff third pay rise in a year

• Pret to scrap smoothies, frappes and milkshakes

In an email to existing subscribers informing them that the £5 increase would kick in from 5 June onwards, Pret said: "No business wants to raise prices, but of the new subscription price, around £1 will cover increasing ingredient prices, £2 will go towards Pret team pay, and around £2 will help with rising energy costs."

The scheme has been renamed Club Pret and is available in most of Pret's 439 UK stores.

When the chain launched the Pret Coffee Subscription scheme it charged £20 a month for five hot or cold drinks a day, raising that to £25 in February 2022.

However, last year, the BBC reported the Advertising Standards Authority had received thousands of complaints about the lack of available cold, blended drinks.

Then earlier this year the company scrapped smoothies, frappes and milkshakes altogether.

Pret said the subscription service was used 1.25 million times a week in the UK, up 11% year-on-year, and had been introduced to stores in the US and France.