Pret a Manager (normally shortened to plain ol' "Pret") is a premium sandwich/coffee chain based in the UK. They have stores in Manhattan and other places too. I miss it desperately.
Pre-packaged sandwiches are normally considered a bit ghetto and nasty. Pret used to (maybe they still do... I dunno...) print the recipe for the sandwich you were eating on the side of the box so that you realised you were getting good quality ingredients and a fair amount of effort went in to what you were eating.
Seems as though Pret realised what you were buying was not so much the product itself, but the convenience.
1. Are you USian or UKian (or neither)? Pre-packaged sandwiches have much greater acceptance in the UK. Heck, M&S sells them.
2. Don't pre-packaged sandwiches already have ingredients printed on them? If you're drawing a distinction between ingredients and recipe, how does one more than the other guarantee quality of ingredients?
1) Neither. But i've lived in both. From what I saw, Pret really upped the ante with the quality of their sandwiches, and others followed as best they could.
2) This picture answers it better than I tried to explain it:
Pre-packaged sandwiches are normally considered a bit ghetto and nasty. Pret used to (maybe they still do... I dunno...) print the recipe for the sandwich you were eating on the side of the box so that you realised you were getting good quality ingredients and a fair amount of effort went in to what you were eating.
Seems as though Pret realised what you were buying was not so much the product itself, but the convenience.