One is a much-loved Newcastle-based bakery chain whose sausage rolls are sold in the millions around the UK; the other is a sandwich shop chain whose French name hints at an upmarket offering.
But now Greggs and Pret A Manger are being used in an admittedly lighthearted academic study to find out the dividing line between the North and the South of England. Researchers at Sheffield Hallam University used machine learning and AI to divide the country into areas which have more Greggs than Prets – which makes them northern – and areas which have greater numbers of Prets, a company founded in the wealthy London area of Hampstead, and therefore in the South.
The study argues that the divide between the North and the South is a diagonal line that starts just north of Norwich and goes down to the southern coast of England to the east of Bournemouth. The line passes the M1 motorway close to the Watford Gap services, often touted as the place where the North-South divide occurs.
