Frankenwrap: Anima Launches £1m Public Campaign About Pret’s Broken Promise To Chickens

If you've been in London this week, you may have seen or heard about the infamous Frankenwrap.

This 4-metre, animatronic chicken stuffed inside a giant Pret wrapper is on tour, appearing outside Pret cafés throughout the city.

Understandably, Tiktok and Reddit users are wondering what's going on. Why would we spend our time and money lugging this weird, heavy thing around?

Pret has an animal cruelty problem

Most people expect Pret to have high animal welfare standards. In its marketing, Pret talks a lot about "thoughtful sourcing" and "doing the right thing", and gains customers as a result.

But behind closed doors, Pret has been sourcing its chicken from factory farms where millions of birds suffer. The key issue is that Pret is selling "frankenchickens" - birds who have been bred to grow so fast that their bodies break. These are the exact same fast-growing chickens used by the likes of the KFC and even your local chicken shop.

Chickens have been selectively bred over many decades to grow bigger, quicker. Modern fast-growing chickens, the kind used by Pret, reach full size in just 35 days. And their bodies struggle to cope with the ultra fast growth.

Fast-growing chickens routinely suffer from painful leg problems, lameness and disease. It's common for these birds to contract skin burns from laying in their own faeces and urine.

Some of these chickens even die of heart attacks because their organs can't deal with the strain.

Pret promised to change this by 2026

In 2018, Pret promised to stop selling fast-growing chickens by 2026. Instead, they assured the public that they would switch to using slower growing, healthier chickens who have better lives. In return, they earned themselves years of praise and freedom from scrutiny.

Such an improvement is not a pipe-dream. Waitrose made the same commitment and followed through last year ahead of schedule. The entire Norwegian chicken industry will stop using these breeds by the end of next year. It's simply a matter of switching chicken type.

Pret hasn't even started

Pret's deadline is here. Eight years later, and Pret has made 0% progress in phasing out fast-growing chickens (don't take it from us.)

100% of the chicken sold in Pret continues to come from these poor fast-growing chickens. The reason Pret gives is "lack of supply" - but the real reason is money. If Waitrose can do it, a company which sells vastly more chickens than a café chain, so can Pret.

For the past two years we've tried to solve this with Pret behind the scenes. We always prefer to work together with companies to improve animal welfare. Even though Pret has missed its original deadline, it could still make the transition within 1-2 years.

But instead of doing the right thing and getting started, Pret has simply kicked the can down the road.

Pret now has a new deadline of 2032, promising no further action until 2031. That's 6 years from Pret's original deadline, and 14 years from its original commitment. And this commitment was only released after we briefed Pret on our coming campaign. That's not commitment, that's a defensive move to prepare for the coming scrutiny.

Actions speak louder than words

In our view, Pret’s so-called commitment is simply a cover for its continued inaction. Millions of animals will continue to suffer in the most atrocious conditions as a result. And what's more, Pret is continuing to mislead its many customers who value animal welfare.

That's why, unlike Pret, we've put our money where our mouth is. We've allocated £1m to take the conversation directly to Pret's customers, starting with the Frankenwrap tour. Working with an artist, we've created this car-sized enigma to engage Londoners throughout the city.

Starting this week, we've also teamed up with Project Slingshot. You may have seen their frankenchicken ads all over the Underground. They're also joining the fight to highlight Pret's continued use of these poor birds.

At the same time, we've taken out full page ads in several newspapers, and we've taken to the press and social media to raise the alarm about Pret's broken promise.

In just a few days, 16k people have signed our pledge to take a break from Pret until it produces a credible plan to phase out fast-growing chickens. We're encouraging the public to send a message to Pret that animal welfare matters, and promises matter.

Connor Jackson
CEO
Anima
connor.jackson@anima.org.uk
+447504580011