Putney Pret Opening Met by Hazmat Protest Over 2032 Pledge

Campaigners in white hazmat suits lined up outside a new Pret A Manger on West Hill in Putney on Thursday, holding large photographs of fast-growing chickens across the front of the shop as it opened. The row is not about the shop. It is about a promise Pret made in 2018 and has since pushed back to 2032.

Anima, a registered charity that campaigns on farmed animal welfare, told Wandsworth News beforehand that it expected about 10 campaigners at the Motor Fuel Group forecourt at 134 West Hill, SW15 2UE, between 12pm and 1pm on Thursday 10 September. The charity sent us photographs afterwards showing campaigners in hazmat suits at the shop front, beside the balloon arch put up for the opening. Anima says it has now protested at 100 Pret shops in recent months.

We did not go. This article is written from published documents, from written answers Anima’s chief executive sent us, and from the photographs the charity supplied.

What Pret’s own document says

The substance is checkable, because Pret has published it. Pret’s Better Chicken Commitment progress update sets out how far it has got against the commitment’s six criteria, market by market.

On five of the six, Pret UK reports 100%. That includes full compliance with the 30kg per square metre stocking density limit, the lighting and perch standards, gas stunning and third-party auditing.

On the sixth, criterion three, adopting approved slower-growing breeds, the figure for Pret UK is 0%. So is the figure for Pret US and Pret France. (Pret A Manger, Better Chicken Commitment progress update)

The same document sets out a new timetable for that criterion:

• 2031: 50% of chicken from approved slower-growing breeds
• 2032: 100%

Pret gives its reasons in the document. Meeting the breeds criterion “remains a challenge due to limited breed availability, and planning constraints across the UK agricultural sector”, it says, and it adds that “progress may not be linear”.

That timetable matters because of what the commitment originally asked for. The UK Better Chicken Commitment policy is published in full and begins: “By 2026, we will require our suppliers to meet the following requirements for 100% of the chicken in our supply chain.” Approved slower-growing breeds are the third of those requirements. (Better Chicken Commitment, the UK policy)

Pret’s position

Pret sets out its case on its own website. It says all broiler chicken sourced for Pret in the UK “already meets five of the six Better Chicken Commitment criteria, making us the leading foodservice restaurant for chicken welfare in Compassion in World Farming’s (CIWF) ChickenTrack”. It describes breeds as “the final step remaining” and says it has “set out a clear roadmap to reach 100% slower-growing breeds by 2032”. (Pret A Manger, Sustainability)

Compassion in World Farming, the welfare charity Pret worked with on the roadmap, is quoted on the same page. It calls the roadmap “a clear signal of Pret’s ongoing commitment to higher-welfare chicken production”, while noting that “significant work still lies ahead”.

Pret also says its UK chicken comes from British farms, and that its supplier uses “nest-born” chicks that hatch on the farm rather than being transported as day-olds.

What the campaigners told us

We asked Anima six questions. Its chief executive, Connor Jackson, answered in writing.

On numbers and policing:

We expect to bring around 10 campaigners. No, police haven’t been notified. Whilst we plan to boldly show the consequences of Pret’s broken commitment on the animals in their supply chain, the protest will be fully peaceful, so police are unlikely to be necessary.

On whether Pret was given a chance to respond before the campaign started:

We have been in dialogue with decision makers in Pret for two years. We informed them about the possibility of a coming campaign in late 2025, 8 months before we launched it. We also gave their press team a full briefing about our plans in March, and a few weeks later they released their 2032 commitment in response. We deemed this not good enough, since at this point, after eight years of inaction in phasing out frankenchickens, a new long-term commitment is indistinguishable from Pret merely kicking the can down the road.

On whether Pret knows about Thursday:

We haven’t informed Pret of this specific action, because they shut down dialogue with us after we launched the campaign, but they are fully aware of the campaign itself and have responded already many times in the media.

Anima says the wider campaign is backed by £1m and that 90,000 people have supported it. We asked what the money is being spent on and who is funding it:

The funds have been going towards many different things. For example, we commissioned an artist to produce a car-sized, animatronic “frankenwrap” which went viral several times online and made headlines across London. We have taken out ads in newspapers and online, and have printed thousands of leaflets and posters for actions. We’ve hired various specialists such as a creative agency to help us develop ideas. All of this really helps us to make sure the message is memorable and engaging, especially when we are competing with Pret’s much larger marketing budget.

To be frank, we don’t want to be spending such significant funds on holding Pret accountable, and we never thought we would end up at this point. But Pret refused to do the right thing for two years, and so we felt like we had no choice but to take the debate to the public with a bold and hard hitting campaign.

On the source of the money, Mr Jackson said it comes from “our tens of thousands of donors across our six countries of operations, from ordinary people to philanthropic organisations, who compassionately and generously donate their money in order to help and improve the lives of animals”.

Corrected 10 September: this article originally said Anima had not answered our questions about the £1m. It had, and the answer is printed above.

The wider campaign

Anima says the Putney protest is one of around 100 it has held at Pret shops in recent months, and that it is running alongside advertising bought by the campaign group Project Slingshot on more than 200 London Underground stations and 2,200 tube carriages. The charity says the group Ad Free Cities has separately criticised Pret for advertising factory farmed chicken.

It also points to a public pledge at breakfrompret.com, which it says more than 90,000 people have signed, promising to stay away from Pret until the 2026 promise is kept. Anima says the naturalist and broadcaster Chris Packham is among them. On the birds themselves, the charity says the breeds it objects to are reared to grow five times faster than a bird would grow naturally. Those figures and claims are Anima’s, and we have not verified them.

Who Anima is

Anima is a registered charity in England and Wales. The Charity Commission register lists it under charity number 1190484 as Anima Advocacy Ltd, and records its purpose as educating the public and decision makers on how animals are treated in factory farms. Its most recent reported annual income is £479,257. (Charity Commission, Anima Advocacy Ltd)

The same body is at Companies House as Anima Advocacy Ltd, company number 12036812, incorporated on 6 June 2019 and previously named Open Cages Advocacy Ltd. Its registered office is in Farnham, Surrey. (Companies House, Anima Advocacy Ltd)

On its own website the group describes itself as a member of the Anima International coalition, inspired by effective altruism, and says it works with large UK food companies on policy change for farmed animals.

Corrected 10 September: this article originally questioned whether Anima was a charity. It is a registered charity, number 1190484.

The group’s account of the original promise is on its homepage: “In 2018 Pret A Manger made a public commitment to phase out Frankenchickens from its entire supply chain by the end of 2026.” It says over a billion fast-growing chickens are reared in the UK each year. That is Anima’s figure, and we have not verified it.

The site itself

The forecourt is a working Esso station. Motor Fuel Group’s own record for it lists site FS1089, 134 West Hill, Putney, London SW15 2UE, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with EV charge points, an ATM, a jet wash and an off licence. (Motor Fuel Group, Putney FS1089)

That page does not mention a Pret, and we could find no announcement from either Pret or Motor Fuel Group about a shop opening at the site. The photographs Anima supplied on Thursday show a Pret A Manger fascia above the forecourt shop, next to the Budgens sign, with a balloon arch at the door. Pret is one of the brands Motor Fuel Group lists among its forecourt partners, alongside Burger King, Greggs, Deliveroo and Just Eat. (Motor Fuel Group, Partners and Brands)

What it means for you

• The forecourt is on the A3 at the top of West Hill, a road thousands of Wandsworth drivers use daily. The protest was held there over the Thursday lunchtime hour, and the shop opened the same day.
• Anima said beforehand that the protest would be peaceful and that it had not notified the Metropolitan Police. Organisers of a static protest are not always required to.
• If you want to check the welfare claims yourself rather than take either side’s word, both primary documents are linked above and both are short. Pret’s progress update is two pages.
• Nothing here changes what is on sale at Pret’s existing Putney High Street shop.

Putney has had a busy few weeks of change on its roads and high street. Our Putney traffic changes piece covers the junction work, and Wandsworth roadworks and travel tracks current closures.

We approached this story from the record rather than the press release. If Pret or Motor Fuel Group would like to comment on the West Hill shop, or if any detail here is wrong, write to us and we will publish a dated correction.