Richard Jacob: We should support brave local businesses over brands like Pret a Manger

With Pret a Manger opening an Irish store this week, Richard Jacob says we should not turn our streets into a pastiche Basingstoke High Street just because of a slick branding campaign

Café chain Pret a Manger is opening a Dublin outlet this week.

Pret a Manger is opening its first Irish store on Friday in Dublin, thus following a long line of international food companies and private equity firms into the Irish market.

This has generated a lot of hype about how they intend to “create” five hundred new jobs in Ireland over the coming years and what their arrival means to Ireland.

Perhaps it is time for a small reality check.

A new chain of cafés does not create jobs, they merely move them around. People will still only eat the same amount, so by eating in a new place, they will stop eating in another place and the job will move.

Pret a Manger is owned by JAB, a vast German conglomerate, headquartered in Brussels, that bought it from a private equity firm for £1.5 billion (€1.78bn). This is the polar opposite of how most Irish food businesses operate.

Allow me to explain.

Richard jabobs says we should support local cafés because we all still have a choice — for now.

A typical café in, say Cork operates like this: The accountant 'Elaine' is based on the South Mall. The solicitor 'Pauline' is based on Sheare Street. The bread is bought from 'Declan'. The cooked chicken is Irish and bought from 'Tim'. The lettuce is from 'Kevin'. And it goes on. 

The profits of the business are then spent locally. Maybe a replacement car from 'Tomás', home improvements from 'CarrigDubh homes' and fees to send the children to college in MTU. JAB have their own back office accountants, solicitors and aggressively tendered food suppliers and their profits are repatriated to Germany.

This is business: it is not wrong, it is not immoral, it is just profit-focussed.

We have a choice. We create and shape our cities by our spending habits.

We can continue to worship at the foot of carefully created super-brands like Krispy Kreme, Costa and Pret or we can support those brave enough to open a business in a neighbourhood, for a neighbourhood.

We have seen our cities and towns hollowed out because we chose Amazon over our own, let us not turn our streets into a pastiche Basingstoke High Street just because of a slick branding campaign.

We create and shape our cities by our spending habits.

Some years ago, when an American multinational coffee house opened in Cork without planning permission (thus avoiding local development charges), a local Government Minister said that it was “a vote of confidence in the city.” It is time that we had confidence in ourselves.

We need to look at what we have, who we are and where we are going.

Ireland is an island with a wonderful heritage of difference, of quirky originality, of opinions.

We attract tourists and investment because of our difference, not our sameness.

So, a sandwich shop is opening in Dublin — it's no big deal.

Competition is always good, it drives business, but at the end of the day this company will follow the example of Costa, Nero and Wetherspoons and export profits that would have been spent in local communities.

I will continue to support local cafés owned by 'Dominic', 'Karl', 'Rebecca' and 'Dee', because we all still have a choice — for now.

• Richard Jacob is a hospitality and business consultant. He previously ran Idaho Cafe in Cork City for 21 years.