As it happens, Greggs boasts a serious heritage. It was founded in Tyneside in 1939, which is a year before the first McDonald’s, and puts Nando’s and Pret a Manger to bed with a bottle of milk and a copy of A Cat in a Hat. Both of these were conceived in the late 1980s and took years to become famous. Nobody had heard of a “cheeky Nando’s” until well into the Noughties, possibly later. Greggs? Greggs has put in a shift.
The rise of the chain has been well documented in recent years. A little bakery from Newcastle started to acquire national cult status in the early 2000s, revelling in joy found by way of cheap sausage rolls. Patriotism and pride. Then came the boom proper. In a decade, 1,500 bakeries became 2,500. Greggs, decades-established in the North, emphatically took the South. Profits soared as ovens whirred. Greggs teamed up with Primark to launch a clothing range; with designer Dion Kitson to release branded jewellery. When the bakery launched its vegan sausage roll in 2019, the snack was, for a few hours at least, the most talked about thing in Britain.
That is Greggs’ recent history in brief because we must quickly get to the latest development in the company’s insatiable rise: Nigella Lawson. Yes, the Queen herself is the new face of Greggs’ Christmas campaign, having agreed to front its new seasonal advert.
Last month, Nigella was spotted filming outside an upmarket house in west London, clutching a bag of Greggs items among fairy lights. Over the first weekend of November, the advert hit screens and pastry got that little bit more golden. Nigella has the Midas touch, after all: when the broadcaster recommended goose fat for roast potatoes in 2006, sales doubled at Waitrose; after she used a waffle maker on her BBC Two cooking show, Lakeland reported sales of the product increased by 30 per cent. The oft-cited Nigella Effect will be put to good use by Greggs.
Has Nigella gone down-market? Of course not. Rather, Greggs is the new John Lewis. The department store’s last couple of festive adverts have been boring and there’s a gap to fill. I’d wager an advent calendar of festive bakes that Nigella enjoying seasonal pastry will get the nation talking.
I must say that the chain has worried me in recent years. At the start of the year, I wrote about it becoming a “monster”, branches springing up all over the place, eclipsing all other high street bakers. That’s often the British way, isn’t it: build something up before knocking it down (see also: Gareth Southgate; New Balance trainers; Shoreditch). But I won’t apologise because I still think there is ridiculousness at play. Must a shop be on every corner? Greggs in hospitals is nonsense. But now, as winter approaches, a change has happened: hands up and fair play, Greggs is on a triumphant roll. It is practically untouchable, much the same as Laurence Llewelyn Bowen or the Golf GTI.
This latest collaboration strengthens the Greggs brand. A juxtaposition: fancy Nigella Lawson with a working class staple. A fabulous meeting in the middle. When better than at Christmas, by the way? Dickens taught us that.
It might also be fair to say that Greggs is safe from being done down as, say, Pret has been, because it is so affordable and utterly encompassing. Poshos in London like it because it makes them look normal. Middle classes enjoy it because, squeezed as they are, they can still afford loads of £2.40 steak bakes.
No wonder Greggs serves more than five million customers a week and sells almost 140 million sausage rolls a year. No wonder it is bigger than any other food-centred operation, leapfrogging the likes of Subway (hideous) and Domino’s (Pizza Hut is better). It is set to grow further, this FTSE 250 bakery chain; this £1.8 billion enterprise. It's truly baked in.
Nigella remains quite the coup. A tremendous move from Greggs (and Nigella). I think it might be the final piece in the jigsaw. Greggs, now, has become not only a fixture synonymous with high streets, not just a “cult” hit imbibing Britain’s fickle psyche. As pride-inducing as John Lewis but as culturally relevant as McDonald’s. Did I mention it’s a whole year older?
This article was updated on November 4 after the advert was released
