Not just a sausage roll: Greggs to sell vegan versions of its bestselling products
Don’t tell Piers Morgan, but Greggs is about to sell more than just vegan sausage rolls.
The high street baker has said is working on vegan versions of all its bestselling products, from steak bakes to pasties.
It comes after the runaway success of its Quorn-filled sausage roll, launched in January.
This has proved so popular - it has made huge profits and told City investors it was making more money than expected - that it plans to extend its vegetarian range.
Greggs’ chief executive, Roger Whiteside, said Friday when that the comapny was working on new vegan recipes, just weeks after the company said it was about to release a vegan doughnut.
“We are working away to see if we can come up with a version of all our bestselling lines because people want vegan options,” Whiteside told LBC radio.
“If we can produce something that tastes just as good as the meat version, then that will sell very successfully. That’s what’s been shown with the vegan sausage roll.”
When the sausage roll was released in January it caused national headlines.
Morgan, rarely short of a view about anything, dismissed the idea as the company pandering to the politically correct.
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“Nobody was waiting for a vegan bloody sausage, you PC-ravaged clowns,” he wrote on Twitter.
Greggs wittily responded: “Oh hello Piers, we've been expecting you.”
Nobody was waiting for a vegan bloody sausage, you PC-ravaged clowns. https://t.co/QEiqG9qx2G
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 2, 2019
Oh hello Piers, we've been expecting you
— Greggs (@GreggsOfficial) January 2, 2019
The vegan range has done more than just change the company’s menu, said Whiteside.
It has also been instrumental is changing the perception of Greggs from “an old-fashioned bakery from the north”, he said, to a “modern food-on-the-go brand”.
A shake-up of its menu, to include speciality coffees, porridge, soup and wraps, has transformed the group into a serious rival for chains such as Pret a Manger.
Other plans include entering the takeaway dinner market and keeping its shops open later.
