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26th March 2024
07:09pm GMT
When I moved down to London from the north many moons ago, the thing I missed more than anything else in those first few years was Greggs.
At my old office, you could stand on the roof and see five Greggs, two of which would open until the wee hours of the morning providing drinkers with their late-night fill, whereas down south, at least at the time, they were still eating Chelsea buns and French patisserie, which just don't cut the mustard after a heavy night out.
My yearning for Greggs was particularly pronounced during the festive period when I’d take the bus across town just to get my hands on a Festive Bake. All that chicken and bacon and onion stuffing covered in a creamy sage and cranberry sauce in a golden, crisp pastry was just too much to go without. For me, it wasn’t Christmas until I'd had one.
Of course, those problems are long behind me now that Greggs has a burgeoning foothold in London that shows no sign of slowing down.
Last year, the bakery chain opened the hotly-anticipated Greggs at No. 1 Leicester Square after a battle with the local council over licensing laws. The launch saw hundreds of people take to the blue carpet and hordes of paparazzi gathered to mimic a film premiere. They even had Pasty Kween dress up in a sausage roll dress to mark the occasion, which was anything but beige.
The 'mega-site' in one of London’s most prestigious squares is a far cry from the bakery’s humble beginnings on Tyneside in the mid-20th century, where John Gregg set up shop and set into motion one of the UK’s most successful fast-food chain stories.
By 2016, the bakery was being hailed as a brand that had “conquered Britain” after figures showed it was selling 2.5 million sausage rolls a week. Today, it makes and sells five sausage rolls every second, the equivalent of one million per day or seven million a week.
But traditional bakery goods are only a small part of what Greggs does. Indeed, the key to its success has been its ability to position itself as a brand of choice.
Where bakeries used to compete with major supermarkets that sell cheap, take-home goods, Greggs has repositioned itself as a ‘food-to-go’ chain offering affordable and accessible food at all times of day and, increasingly, even at night.
Indeed, the move to open shops in airports and even in supermarkets themselves to complement their strong presence on high streets and in service stations underscores their ability to constantly find demand.
Today you are just as likely to pop in for a salad and a juice to eat back at the office, a bacon roll and a coffee to eat on the commute in or eschew meat altogether with treats from their vegan range that caters for another burgeoning market.
Bosses at the Newcastle-based business have also been keen to emphasise how they have benefited from its “value position” amid continued demand from customers with squeezed household finances.
Alongside the traditional stores, Greggs has launched a number of outlet shops where unsold food is redistributed and sold at a lower price.
The majority of the products are less than half the price you’d usually pay in-store, and given they’re already pretty cheap, that’s really saying something!
And it’s not out-of-date stuff. It’s simply items which were made the day before but didn’t sell, so they are passed onto the regional stores.
The high-street pastry chain opened its first Outlet shops in 2022, and there are now 28 in operation across the UK.
By the end of 2025, Greggs wants to have 50 of them open providing affordable food in areas of social deprivation as part of their commitment to cutting food waste and helping communities.
Of course, in today’s market, no brand would be worth its salt without people constantly talking about it.
That’s where the Greggs PR machine has helped.
In 2019, they responded to an online petition set up by Peta urging them to create a vegan sausage roll by doing precisely that and conveniently pissing off the right people in doing so.
Piers Morgan tried one on his former GMB show, spitting it into a bin and taking to Twitter to decry the new baked treat, claiming “nobody” was waiting for it.
He was wrong, of course. Sales of the vegan sausage rolls helped drive a surge in sales in 2019 and there were queues out of the door when it launched the vegan steak bake with everyone wanting to try one.
A similarly well-talked-about campaign promoting an exclusive Greggs Black Card also had a range of celebrities taking to social media to promote the brand.
British rapper Stormzy and singer Ed Sheeran were among those to be gifted a Concierge card by the bakery chain, and social media influencer LadBaby became the first person to inherit one.
Other campaigns of note include their bottomless Festive Bake brunch rolled out last year and reversing the sign of a shop in Newcastle so it reflected into the famous Fenwicks Christmas display, which is just pure genius.
But perhaps the biggest factor behind Greggs' success is the fact that it has achieved what only a select number of brands ever do, which is an iconic status in Britain.
Not only do people enjoy its sausage rolls and coffees in the morning, but they also buy Greggs pyjamas and bucket hats from Primark, even swimming costumes.
As Dan Coatsworth, an analyst at investment platform AJ Bell put it, "Greggs has captured British hearts".
If you can get people to wear your products as well as eat them, you know you've done something right.
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