From steak bakes to Nigella: Has Greggs betrayed its working-class roots?

How did the purveyor of greasy sausage rolls become a so-kitsch-its-cool brand fit for Britain’s plummiest celebrity chef? Helen Coffey charts the humble high street bakery’s ascent

As someone who doesn’t work in marketing, I’ve never spent a significant amount of time dwelling on the concepts of “brand identity”, “collabs” or “shared vision”. But if I’d had to wager who might be an appropriate spokesperson for no-frills Greggs – famed for its beloved beige buffet of greasy sausage rolls and steak bakes – I’m not sure Nigella Lawson would have immediately sprung to mind. Yet these two seemingly opposing forces have come together in the most public display of affection possible: the former is the star of the latter’s first-ever Christmas advert.

They have, traditionally, represented very different sides of British culinary life. Writer and presenter Nigella, with her 1950s pin-up aesthetic, decadent recipes involving quantities of double cream that would haunt a cardiologist’s nightmares, and plummy tones befitting a BBC radio play, is the epitome of middle-class dining. She’s always popping into her enviable walk-in pantry to fetch some little-known ingredient; she’s always inviting chums round to her exquisite west London home to indulge in a perfectly thrown-together feasting platter. Not to mention her properly upper-crust heritage (she’s the daughter of the heiress to the J Lyons and Co fortune and a baron/former chancellor of the Exchequer).

And then there’s Greggs, a distinctly lower-crust cultural touchstone if ever there was one. The high street bakery’s humble origin story began 85 years ago, when John Gregg started delivering eggs and yeast by bike around Newcastle before opening a bricks-and-mortar shop in 1951. The business has grown to encompass 2,500 branches nationwide, but it’s still headquartered in the North East, while the focus on building a brand around “community” and “family” hasn’t changed all that much since 1939. While it used to be seen as a north-of-England phenomenon, these days the highest concentration of Greggs shops is found in Glasgow, closely followed by London. Yes, that’s right – though one study may have claimed that the distribution of Greggs versus Pret a Manger stores is the truest indicator of the North-South divide, southerners have also proven susceptible to a hot filling swaddled in puff pastry sold at competitive prices. (The toughest nut to crack has possibly been Cornwall, where Truro residents labelled the county’s first-ever Greggs “the Devil’s spawn”.)

Lawson and Greggs: she’s the uptown girl, he’s the downtown man. Somehow, they’ve decided that there’s enough crossover in the Venn diagram of their individual brands to warrant a festive collaboration.

“I love Christmas, it’s my favourite time of year: family, friends and, of course, the food,” says Lawson, her big, brown eyes – with just a hint of coquettishness around the irises – doing their signature come-hither look to camera. “A rapturous riot of flavour, succulent filling, creamy sauce, all wrapped up in the flakiest of flaky pastries, in one or both hands.” So far, so M&S food commercial. But the unexpected subject of all these superlatives is soon revealed: “Say hello to the Greggs festive bakes, sweet mince pies, aromatic gingerbread lattes, gorgeous Christmas lunch baguettes,” the How to be a Domestic Goddess author continues. “The Greggs Christmas menu is back.”

Perhaps it shouldn’t feel such a surprising partnership. Over the past five years or so Greggs has, through a clever combination of marketing and new products, managed to keep its traditional appeal while establishing itself as an indisputable icon of kitsch cool.

A dish from the new Greggs Champagne Bar at Fenwick Newcastle (Greggs/PA)

First came the vegan sausage roll – launched in 2019, it was a headline-grabbing move that provoked censure from the “anti-woke” mob and clearly signposted that, while the jammie doughnuts and cheese and onion bakes weren’t going anywhere, Greggs was capable of moving with the times. These days, there are soy and oat milk options for drinks, vegan glazed doughnuts, and a Quorn sausage breakfast roll as part of the plant-based roster.

More bougie products followed, with a new range of iced drinks this summer: coffees, flavoured lemonades, coolers. And even those who don’t worship at the feet of puff pastry are increasingly being catered for: recent “healthier” launches included vegetarian pesto and mozzarella pasta and feta and tomato pasta.

Whether or not this amounts to mere gimmickry, something is clearly working

But establishing Greggs as a name with clout required it to extend beyond the world of food. In 2022, the company linked up with Primark to offer a sell-out fashion line of branded bodysuits, bike shorts, bumbags and bucket hats. This year, it added bling to the baked goods, releasing a limited-edition jewellery collection. Designed by British artist Dion Kitson and featuring 22-carat gold sausage roll stud earrings (adorable) and a Greggs signet ring, the collection was launched to coincide with London Fashion Week.

The glow-up continued with tongue-in-cheek glam pop-ups. Last Christmas saw the debut of Bistro Greggs, a Parisian-themed “fine dining” restaurant temporarily housed in the Newcastle branch of Fenwick’s department store, where superfans were served refined reinterpretations of Greggs’ classics and £9.50 jam doughnut-inspired cocktails. The brand strikes again this Christmas, once more taking over Fenwick’s with a champagne bar where fizz accompanies steak bakes with peppercorn aioli; sausage, bean and cheese melts paired with a Bloody Mary ketchup; and sausages rolls complemented by hot honey chilli sauce. Does cuisine get more haute than that?

Sausage roll earrings, anyone? (Greggs)

Whether or not this amounts to mere gimmickry, something is clearly working. In March, it was announced that the majority of the business’s 32,000 staff would receive bonuses after Greggs posted a 27 per cent increase in annual profits. In May, the firm reported a 7.4 per cent rise in like-for-like sales for the first 19 weeks of 2024 and hit a milestone 2,500 shops trading nationwide. In August, as McDonald’s reported a 1 per cent fall in same-store sales, some speculated that Greggs was muscling in on the fast-food behemoth’s market share thanks to its growing popularity.

And, while all the pop-ups and pageantry might lead one to wonder whether Greggs has become something of a parody – trading on a kind of working-class cosplay aesthetic at odds with its origins to attract middle-class consumers – the numbers tell a very different story. In fact, the chain’s continuing success is most likely down to its consistent affordability. At a time when the cost of living crisis continues to squeeze pockets, Greggs offers a breakfast meal deal or a sausage roll and hot drink deal for £2.85. According to industry data platform Stocklytics, while Pret a Manger’s prices rose by an average of 57 per cent since 2019 – at least 90p per drink – Greggs was deemed cheapest, with an average rise of just 7 per cent over five years.

Given all of the above, Nigella’s decision to become the face of Greggs could just be her canniest career move yet. After all, what uptown girl can resist her downtown man? Especially when he comes bearing festive bakes…