The boss of Pret A Manger says further pay increases for workers could be on the cards, but he also warned price may go up due to soaring food inflation.
Pano Christou said he knows what life is like for staff struggling by on low wages as he grew up in a family where money was tight.
The group CEO spoke after the business last week confirmed its third wage rise in the space of a year.
Mr Christou said: “If you pay people what they should be paid, you shouldn’t have a staff problem. I want us to pay more than the competition.”
He added that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if it looked at another increase “at some point this year.
The 45-year-old said: “It depends on inflation, whether it continues to push up.”
Pret’s extra 3% from April 1 for more than 7,800 UK shop staff means its average base pay will have increased by 19% in 12 months.
At £10.60 an hour, its lowest paid staff will still get just 18p an hour above the national living wage for 23-year-olds and above.
Pret insists a very small number are on this rate, that its base pay applies to those aged under 23 too, and that “team members” will get between £11.85 and £13.15 an hour.
Baristas will get up to £14.10 an hour. Staff already get free food and drink while on shift, and a 50% discount at other times.
Mr Christou, who took over in 2019 after joining the business aged 22, started work at McDonald’s when he was 16, on £2.75 an hour.
The married father-of-two grew up in Tooting, South London. His dad, half Greek, half Italian, was a mini-cab driver and his mum, from Cyprus, a nurse who, at one stage, also worked as a cleaner for extra cash.
Mr Christou said: “My first job, at 14/15, was delivering mini-cabs cards through doors. I washed my father’s car every Sunday.
"He would pay me a pound or two, but I would probably find more change under the seats then he paid me.”
Clothes often came from jumble sales. School was tough.
He added: “There were gangs, though I wasn’t part of that. There were knives."
Mr Christou said his parents were disappointed when he chose McDonald’s over university but they are now “proud” of his success.
And he told of his own pride in the sandwich chain’s community work.
The Pret Foundation has been donating unsold food to homeless shelters and charities since the business was started in London in 1986.
Some store managers either were homeless or ex-offenders and came through its Rising Stars programme.
Mr Christou has noticed the rise in demand through the charities it works with.
He said: “Rental prices are going up so significantly, so people are spending more time in the shelters as they can’t afford the cost of living.”
Mr Christou agreed inequality was getting worse.
With an annual salary of £400,000 plus share options worth £3.8million he is part of that divide. But he said: “I try to stay humble.”
Pret, like many other businesses, is facing soaring energy and food costs.
Asked if more price rises are on the way, Mr Christou replied: “If we continue to see food inflation as it is, it becomes very hard for us to hold everything down.”
Pret had to axe 3,000 jobs in the pandemic to save the business.
But it is growing again, with plans to open 50 stores this year, taking the total to 500. The firm has 180 shops abroad and hopes to open one in India next month.
