What Pret A Manger Food On The Move Actually Was
Pret A Manger Food On The Move was their B2B catering and corporate delivery service. You ordered sandwiches, wraps, salads, hot food, and drinks in bulk for offices, events, or meetings. It arrived in branded cool bags, reasonably priced for what it was, and honestly kept things simple for office managers who didn't want to deal with five different suppliers. It wasn't a miracle service. It had real weaknesses, especially around lead times and minimum orders. But for ad-hoc office catering or a small meeting, it was one of the easier options on the market.
How Pret A Manger Food On The Move Worked In Practice
You went to their website, selected your location, picked items from the menu, chose a delivery window, and paid. Standard lead time was usually 48 hours for most orders, though some areas allowed next-day depending on store capacity. Minimum order thresholds applied — typically around £50 to £75 depending on the region. Delivery fees varied but often ran between £5 and £12. The menu was basically the same as the high street stores. Baguettes, wraps, salads, quiches, soup pots, fruit pots, coffees, and soft drinks. That consistency was actually a feature, not a bug, because you knew exactly what you were getting. Here's something most people don't realise: Pret's delivery slots aren't allocated by demand forecasting the way you might expect. They're allocated by individual store capacity. A Pret in a busy London station sometimes can't fulfil a large catering order even if their online shop says they can, because the store is prioritising walk-in customers. This isn't a website glitch — it's how the supply chain works. The online system shows you availability based on estimated store stock, not real-time inventory.
I once booked a 25-person order through Food On The Move for a Tuesday morning meeting in Central London. The confirmation came through fine. I turned up to the meeting and got a partial delivery — 18 out of 25 items arrived, and two of the hot soups were cold. I called Pret's catering helpline, which is actually separate from their regular store complaint line, and they resolved it within an hour. The workaround I use now is to order at least 48 hours out and call the store directly the day before to confirm. The helpline number is on the back of every delivery bag. Save it. The automated phone system is slow during peak hours but a real person picks up if you wait long enough.
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Common Pitfalls People Miss
The biggest issue people run into is assuming the website delivery time is reliable. It's an estimate based on historical data, not a guarantee. If you need food at 12:30 sharp for a client meeting, book it for 12:00 or earlier. Pret drivers sometimes stack multiple drops and the second or third stop gets delayed. Another thing nobody warns you about: dietary labelling on bulk orders is sometimes incomplete. The online menu clearly flags gluten-free and vegetarian options, but once you place a large order, the delivery note doesn't always repeat those flags. I've had team members with gluten intolerance accidentally get standard baguettes because the order summary didn't differentiate. What I do now is print the full order with all dietary notes and hand it directly to the driver when they arrive. It takes ten seconds and prevents actual problems. The service had a real bottleneck around lunchtime on Mondays and the day after bank holidays. Demand spikes in those windows consistently overwhelm store capacity. If you're ordering for a post-holiday team return, book three days out instead of two. The difference between a confirmed order and a "sorry we're fully booked" message is often just that extra 24 hours.
Pret A Manger Food On The Move — What It's Like Now
The service has gone through changes over the years. Pret restructured their corporate offering under the McCann acquisition and in some UK markets the standalone Food On The Move brand was folded into broader corporate hospitality channels. If you're trying to order today, check the current Pret website for your area, because availability and the ordering path may have shifted. Some regions now route corporate orders through different platforms or different minimum thresholds than before. There's no single download link because this was never software — it was a physical catering service. You order online, not via an app download. The Pret app itself handles individual purchases at the till, not bulk catering orders. If a site tells you to download something for Food On The Move, it's probably outdated or incorrect.
Alternatives Worth Considering
If Pret's lead times don't work for you, Sandwich Shark and BaxterSupermarket are the two closest alternatives for UK corporate food delivery. Sandwich Shark tends to have tighter minimums and faster turnarounds, especially in London. BaxterSupermarket is stronger on the hot food side and does more varied menus. Neither is clearly better — it depends on what you're feeding and how far in advance you're booking. The honest limitation with Pret's catering service was always scale. Orders above about 40 covers start to become unreliable through the standard channel, especially on busy days. There's no formal workaround other than splitting the order across multiple stores or moving to a dedicated caterer. Pret was never designed to be a proper event caterer, and trying to use it as one will frustrate you. For anything under 30 people with 48 hours notice, Pret's Food On The Move was straightforward and consistent. Beyond that, you're better off elsewhere. That's the actual answer, not the polished version you'd see on their marketing site.
