Greggs

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Greggs PLC

Type	Public (LSE: GRG)
Founded	1930s
Headquarters	Tyneside, England
Key people	Sir Michael Darrington (MD), Malcolm Simpson (FD), Derek Netherton (Chairman)
Industry	Food (Bakery Group)
Products	Sandwiches, pies and pastries; baked goods
Revenue	£504.2 million GBP (2005)
Employees	18,000
Website	www.greggs.co.uk

Greggs plc is the largest specialist retail bakery chain in the United Kingdom. It is based in Newcastle, England and is quoted on the London Stock Exchange.

Greggs was founded in the 1930s by John Gregg with a single shop on Tyneside. Major expansion began soon after it was taken over by his son, Ian, on his death in 1964 which has included the acquisitions of other bakeries such as Leeds based Thurstons and Manchester based Price's in 1972. The company has grown steadily over the years and now has in excess of one thousand outlets and many town and city centres have multiple numbers of stores. Newcastle itself has ten stores in its city centre, whilst Sunderland has six Greggs all within three minutes walking distance of each other and in Leeds City Centre there are eleven stores. It has a divisional structure with central bakeries around the country supplying the shops in their surrounding areas. Turnover for the 53 weeks ended 1 January 2005 was £504.2 million, with pre-tax profits of £46.7 million and post-tax profits of £31.6 million.

As well as selling British hot savouries such as sausage rolls and Cornish pasties, local items are also available. Traditional Tyneside and, more generally, North East England foods are usually available, including the Stottie.

In 2003, in an attempt to test the foreign market, Greggs opened four stores in Belgium; principally in Antwerp and Leuven.

The retail bakery Bakers Oven is also part of Greggs.

1 Products
2 Slogans
3 In popular culture
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Products

Hot savouries:

Pasties (including vegetable, Cheese & Onion, Chicken, Steak Bake, Sausage and Bean Melt, Corned Beef, Cornish Pasties)
Sausage Rolls
Scotch Pies
Pizza Baguettes
Sandwiches (includes Oval Bites, Soft Bites, xtra- bites and Baguettes with various fillings)

Cold savouries:

Sandwiches
Wraps

Sweet:

Doughnuts
Gingerbread men
Scones
Fresh Cream Cakes including chocolate eclairs
Yum Yums

Drinks:

Buxton bottled water
A variety of 500ml bottles from The Coca Cola Company
Fresh Orange Juice
Tea
A variety of coffees
Hot Chocolate

Other:

Crisps from Walkers
Selection of Heinz Soups

[edit] Slogans

Greggs uses the advertising slogan "It's the way we bake it that makes it".^[1] Its previous slogan was "Got to get to Greggs".

[edit] In popular culture

The word "Greggs" has also been adopted by some football fans in Scotland (particularly those who post on club message boards) as a term for unsubstantiated football rumours. Greggs outlets are particularly well-patronised at lunch-times when long queues provide opportunities for chat and gossip. This has led to the belief that many rumours purporting to be received by posters on good authority (e.g. a club insider) originated in Greggs queues. "Greggs" has thus become a pejorative term to describe football rumours and gossip as in "sounds like Greggs to me".^{[dubious — see talk page]}