At the height of the vegan sausage roll furore, I was idly looking around for other things to like about Greggs, beyond that the bakery giant had enraged Piers Morgan. I was already a fan, on account of its Tottenham cake, an outsized slab of sponge with an unnaturally pink icing. That treat was invented by a Quaker in Tottenham and originally sold for a penny a slice, although that was 150 years ago; the price, at the peak of my fandom (2007), was £1.20.
Anyway, back in the vegan era (2019), I found an employee chatroom praising the chain as a broadly OK employer, with one standout comment that, even though staff were technically allowed only hot drinks for free, they regularly got a load of baked goods as well, with one sales assistant saying he ate £10 to £15 worth of free food every lunchtime. How can anyone get through that many doughnuts, sausage rolls and steak bakes? Unbelievable stomach capacity.
