London food-to-go: quarterly update

 From recent safaris and store visits, we share some of our latest themes, trends and insights ahead of our September 15^th safari. If you want to join our safari, get in touch or book your place here.

Continuing expansion: Salad Project, atis, Farmer J

 

If you've spent much time in London recently, you've probably spotted at least one of these fresh focused, quality oriented bowl (and fieldtray) specialists. And if you visited recently, your chances of coming across one will be much higher. Combined, Salad Project, atis and Farmer J have pretty much doubled their combined store count over the past 18 months. And they continue to trade well – in our view they’re managing to create and expand their own niche in a market, based on quality ingredients, fresh preparation and great tasting products.  The wider celebration of great tasting vegetables is an important part of the growth, but so too are quality, tasty proteins, indicative of what’s going on more broadly across the food retail and food-to-go market.

	2024 stores	2025 stores	2026 stores	Best seller	Expansion focus	Recommended site to visit
Salad Project	6	9	15	Mex on the beach	First opening in Paris due later this year	Broadgate
atis	8	11	16	Azteca with blackened chicken	Trialling breakfast with a view to wider rollout	St James’
Farmer J	11	15	20	Harissa chicken field tray	1st store open in New York, more planned	Ludgate Circus
Total	25	35	51

Source: Companies, Food Futures Insights research  

All three are impressive propositions, offering a lot of inspiration around menu, environment, collaborations and wider marketing. In our view, they form part of a broader European wave of development of bowl and salad specialists, inspired by the success of US operators such as Sweetgreen, Dig Inn and Cava.  

Back to London, and they are not the only players in this space – Urban Greens and Pick Your Own are also growing presence, while Madrid based Honest Greens, trading as hg in the UK, opened its first London location late last year, and will open a second UK location in October 2026.

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But it’s not just the healthier bowl space that is providing the growth stories across the market.  On the sweet side Donutelier and Honest Crumble are among those expanding, while Sandwich Sandwich, with a focus on freshly prepared, weighty sandwiches, has been another in expansion mode, testing its model with hub and spoke openings without a kitchen.

 

Menu refinement and development: Pret and Pure

We are in fact seeing a lot of development across the board, but two examples that have recently stood out are:

·      Pure’s shift to use Wildfarmed flour in all its wraps, signalling its continuing focus on innovation and sustainable practices (it’s always a favourite on our safaris for these two reasons).

·      Pret’s development of more plates, including larger protein plates and super plates, and smaller sizes, ultimately recognising more the multiple different roles that food-to-go can play across consumers’ different missions.

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Meal deal mechanic evolution and experimentation

Of course we’ve long seen a focus on food-to-go meal deals in retail. And this has continued to evolve and expand, with more premium tiers being introduced across a range of operators and a general growing spread across more retailers.

But now more food-to-go specialists are assessing how they can use elements of this mechanic to target specific missions, not least around snacking and breakfast. There's some good innovation and experimentation right now across London to learn from, not least in the Pick Your Pair mechanic that Pret is trialling on both sides of the Atlantic. And Greggs’ latest initiative, a Quicknic deal, unlocked regionally only when the weather is deemed good enough, is a strong example of how to take this further, with high social media relevance.

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Protein rising even further up the menu, but fibre still on the back burner for many

Protein has proven itself as a strong selling message, both as a direct call out and as an associated feature of products deemed high in protein content (look at the protein heavy snacks across supermarkets’ meal deals if you need more evidence of this).  From a broader functional perspective, there is more runway for growth, but in general for this, and wider fibre messaging, for most food-to-go operators, we’d see the route to growth as being products that sell themselves on taste and quality first, then back this up with wider functional and nutritional credentials. 

A growing Asian – and especially Korean – influence

 

The ongoing expansion of the Korean convenience chain Oseyo is one example of this. But there are several others in London, not least the growing evidence of Korean dishes on the menu at Wasabi and the expansion of Korean street food chain Bunsik. And of course, the Kelly Deli, Korean focused ONGGI counter at Waitrose Granary Square is well worth visiting.

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A market that continues to evolve - we break it down into key learnings for your business

 

For us, what’s really interesting is the wider influence that London continues to exert across different food-to-go strategies beyond its limits. And that’s increasingly across Europe as well as across the UK. That’s, in the phrasing of your favourite AI, why it matters, and is why we regularly run food-to-go safaris in London to keep our clients on top of latest developments, not just seeing what’s going on with them, but also getting under the skin of the rationale behind them and the execution. If that’s important for you, then why not join us? Get in touch gavin@foodfuturesinsights.com or book online here.