Veggie Pret, the vegetarian spin-off to Pret A Manger, has opened its third shop in Exmouth market in Islington, London.

The Exmouth Market site welcomed 500 customers for a preview of the shop and to taste its menu, which included Red Pepper Hot Wraps and Sweet Potato, Coconut & Cashew Flatbreads.

The new site will be the first Veggie Pret outlet that isn’t a conversion to an existing Pret A Manger shop.

Pret A Manger announced it would be opening a third Veggie Pret site in September.

Veggie Pret, which has two other sites in Soho and Shoreditch, is also encouraging its customers to improve the environment by selling reusable glass bottles for £3.99 (250ml) and £4.99 (500ml). Displayed next to the bottled water counter, customers have the choice to refill their bottles rather than buying a new plastic one each time.

“Pret has always tried to lead on food waste and we are making inroads on the problem of packaging waste by reducing where we can and making more of it recyclable,” said Pret CEO Clive Schlee on his blog post.

“Plastic bottles present a real challenge and there are two schools of thought within Pret. The passionate environmentalists say ‘Stop selling them altogether’, while the pragmatists say ‘Make it as easy as you can for customers to use fewer plastic bottles’.”