Index Numbers and Percentage Changes in Action | Live Tracking of Sales at Pret Helps Map How Different Locations Are Recovering from the Pandemic

A fascinating analysis of sales data from key locations for Pret A Manger gives us insights into how the food-on-the go market is impacted by location as it tries to recover from the pandemic and lockdowns.

Bloomberg has this live, interactive map and supporting data on shop sales from selected Pret stores in key locations in London, New York, Paris and Hong Kong.

The map is updated with weekly sales data for all Pret stores in each location.

You can download the same data from the Office for National Statistics.

New York appears to be the location that is really struggling to recover as many workers in the financial services industry continue to work remotely rather than return to Wall Street.

Compare this with Pret's locations in the London airports, which have bounced back strongly

Perhaps this partly as a consequence of serving products such as flat whites, porridge, croissant and baguettes to the large numbers of airline passengers delayed in the airport terminals!

The data is presented as an index, so this resource is a cool way of introducing the use of index numbers and then calculating percentage changes from the base.

The Pret Index base (index = 100) is sales in pre-pandemic January 2020, and compares sales data starting from March 8 against the average from that month. Every point (.01) on the index represents 1% progress toward returning to those January 2020 levels.

Have a play with the interactive map!