As people tire of Pret A Manger, does the future lie in Tupperware?

In pretty much every office, the workforce broadly divides into two categories: those who bring packed lunches in to work, and those who never do. The division, in my experience, tends to be absolute. Those in the latter camp not only reject packed lunches in practice, but have a kind of theoretical disdain for them, as well. In their eyes, bringing a packed lunch in to work marks a person out as unappealingly domestic and wholesome; in short, more than a little square. Those who are anti packed lunches like to be seen as too busy to cook dinner for themselves in the evening, let alone think about next day's lunch as well.

Such people make a great deal of their daily excursions to local food outlets in order to "grab a sandwich", which they then eat at their desks. Such behaviour advertises their industry; it is a kind of purposeful foraging, akin to hunter-gathering. Yet those who bring their lunches from home are not exempt from the charge of smugness. Such people, let's face it, know only too well that they have virtue on their side. In just about every way you can think of, eating a packed lunch is morally superior to buying a sandwich. It is more economical; less environmentally wasteful (think of the saving on packaging); healthier; and, unless your office happens to be in the vicinity of an unusually good deli, probably tastier, too. As the foragers ostentatiously venture outside, the packed-lunchers luxuriate in a quiet sanctimoniousness all of their own.

The real question is: which way, in the overall scheme of things, are the scales tilting? Is the packed-lunch brigade gaining ground, or will the hegemony of the ready-made sandwich remain unchallenged? It is clear that, over the past decade, there has been a huge swing away from the packed lunch. Thanks to the rise of Pret A Manager and all the other outlets catering to office workers, going out for a sandwich has become by far the simplest option. Even environmentally conscious people can feel reasonably comfortable about doing so, because chains like Pret make a big deal of how fresh and ethical their products are.

Yet, I believe a change is afoot. People are becoming fed up with the uniformity of the high street, and are starting to realise that the future lies with Tupperware. What is my evidence? Well, a quick poll of New Statesman staff revealed that no fewer than 50 per cent of us regularly bring packed lunches to work. Admittedly, such evidence is not exactly clinching. Given the aforementioned disposition of packed-lunch eaters, it is to be expected that, among the staff of a left-wing magazine, there would be a higher-than-average incidence of packed lunches. Nevertheless, I remain convinced that packed lunches are the next big thing. Just remember: you read it here first.

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