Britain’s coffee shops are in hot water. Pret A Manger looks likely to cut 1000 jobs, and other chains, similarly affected by the sudden removal of their regular footfall, will inevitably follow. Before March 23, millions of their customers visited daily. Then lockdown arrived, and many of those customers still won’t have returned.
It seems that a large number of Britons, unable to gratify their coffee shop habit, have attempted to recreate the experience at home. John Lewis reports that its coffee machine sales have increased by 24 per cent since lockdown began, and that its own-brand coffee grinder is selling twice as well as it had been. Its sister supermarket, Waitrose, says that sales of its barista-style alternative milks, which are designed to be frothed, have increased by 64 per
