Greggs is set to go global – here’s how family bakery became British institution that delivers 18m sausage rolls a year
THE recipe for its famous sausage rolls may be a mystery, but how Greggs became one of Britain’s biggest success stories is plain to see.
The bakery chain has boomed by selling hungry punters just what they want, backed up by genius PR campaigns and celebrity fans.
From its sausage roll — with 96 layers of pastry — to its squidgy doughnuts, Greggs treats are scoffed on the go up and down the country.
And the bakery could soon be tickling foreign tastebuds as it looks to expand beyond these shores.
It all began in 1939, when John Gregg took over his family business delivering eggs, yeast and bread by bike to mining families around Newcastle.
He opened the first Greggs shop there in 1951 on Gosforth High Street — known as Greggs’ “ground-zero”.
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After his death in 1964, the business was taken on by his son Ian.
Newcastle still remains the sausage roll capital of the UK, with residents eating 17.9million of them a year.
The chain is idolised in its northern heartlands, with grannies meeting there for a toastie and bricklayers grabbing a sandwich.
Meanwhile, students in Manchester spill into its late-night shop to soak up the booze with a steak bake.
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But Greggs has become so much bigger than that.
With 2,473 shops around the country — a thousand more than McDonald’s — its valuation has swelled to £2.6billion.
Consumer commentator Harry Wallop told The Sun: “We should be proud that Britain’s best-selling fast-food item is not an American burger, but solid, tasty, good-value sausage rolls.”
“In nearly every other country in the world, from France to China, the most popular fast-food chain is McDonald’s or KFC. In the UK, it’s good old Greggs.”
A breakfast meal deal of bacon roll and cup of coffee is £2.85, while an evening meal costs £4, much cheaper than the competition.
It says a lot about Greggs’ standing in British culture that when it hiked the price of a sausage roll by 5p to £1.20 last year it made headlines.
Social media was flooded with fans who saw the rise as a terrible sign.
“You know the world is f*ed”, tweeted one.
Yet customers continued to flood in, as shown by last year’s sales rising by a fifth to £1.8billion.
Underlining its dominance, nearly £2 in every £100 spent in UK hospitality is done in a Greggs.
Along with its good-value pricing, its popularity is helped by clever marketing.
When it leapt on the vegan boom by bringing out a meat-free sausage roll in 2019, its announcement video parodied Apple’s iPhone launches — and it was a PR masterstroke.
The move to embrace veganism even managed to annoy Sun columnist Piers Morgan, which resulted in even more headlines, column inches — and a sales boom.
The type of hype that Greggs builds around its new menu items is similar to a fashion brand releasing this season’s must-have products.
It has even collaborated with Primark for a fashion range, with sliders and bucket hats emblazoned with Greggs’ yellow and blue squares.
It seemed bonkers — but it worked.
Now Greggs has cafes in Primark’s biggest stores.
Actress Kate Beckinsale even posed in a Greggs x Primark swimsuit in 2022.
Another masterstroke has been its wry humour on social media.
A few years ago its page on Google was hacked with a spoof logo that said “providing st to scum for over 70 years”.
But Greggs took it in good humour and cheekily offered doughnuts to the US tech giant to get it fixed.
In reply, Google tweeted: “Sorry Greggs, throw in a sausage roll and we’ll get it done ASAP.”
Greggs has also built a surprising celebrity following, including Hollywood star Jake Gyllenhaal and singer Lewis Capaldi.
And when rapper Stormzy became the first person to have a Greggs “black card”, meaning free pastries for life, he declared it the peak of his life.
Ed Sheeran has one too.
For many years, the company focused on its heartlands in Glasgow, Newcastle and Manchester.
Bosses blamed eye-watering rents “down south” for making it unaffordable.
But as the company’s sales boomed and Covid prompted a fall in rents, Greggs has put London and the South East in its sights.
Explosive growth
So much so that it now has stores in City slicker haunts such as Canary Wharf.
Bankers on six-figure salaries are as happy to feast on a £1.25 sausage roll — they cost more in London — as they are a £125 lunch in the Square Mile.
Much of Greggs’ explosive growth has been credited to ex-boss Roger Whiteside who spent almost a decade leading the business until 2022.
Spotting a change in trends, he moved from making loaves of bread for people to take home, to focusing on serving “food-on-the-go”.
It paid off.
The whippet-thin boss also fended off obesity criticism by adding healthier items such as porridge, salads and flatbreads.
Greggs’ range now includes chicken goujons, pizza slices and potato wedges — but the sausage roll remains its best-seller by a country mile.
Mr Whiteside told me in 2015 that expanding internationally was impossible.
“There is nowhere else in the world that eats sausage rolls,” he said.
But now the new management, led by Roisin Currie, thinks otherwise and is plotting for Greggs to open its first foreign stores.
Greggs has branched out with more shops in supermarkets and at motorway services, railways and airports, meaning more chance overseas diners have already sampled its pastries.
Catherine Shuttleworth, a con-sultant at Savvy Marketing, said: “The story of Greggs, a North East baker, becoming the nation’s favourite eatery is a fantastic one and it’s time we shared it with the rest of the world.”
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Greggs is certainly on the up, but could it be too much? Will we fall out of love with it?
Not according to Roisin Currie, who insisted this week: “We are nowhere near peak Greggs.”
