Is Greggs losing its way?

For many, it is hard to overstate the appeal of Greggs, one of those rare high street chains that provides good-quality food at affordable prices. When it comes to such hero items as the steak bake or the sausage roll – whether with actual sausage or the vegan equivalent – it has inherited the Lyons Corner House’s mantel as the nation’s go-to eating spot of choice. Usually, every piece of news about it, whether it’s announcing its pop-up pub in Newcastle or its recent venture into service stations, is a positive one. This makes it all the more disappointing to find out that it is raising its previously notably fair prices to something that makes it, if not unaffordable, certainly less of a bargain than it previously was.

The company’s CEO Roisin Currie announced that the price rise would kick in immediately and that it was an unfortunate necessity arising from a £20 million hike in National Insurance and staffing costs after the last budget. The results make for grim reading. The iconic sausage roll will still cost hungry punters £1.30, after its price already rose earlier this year, but the breakfast meal deals have risen to £3.15 and £4.15 apiece, a 20p increase. It may sound like a small amount of money, and on paper it is, but such things add up swiftly. Their biscuits, for example, rising by 5p will make the difference between them being an easily affordable treat and something to be weighed up for the impecunious. Currie, who is coming to rival Wetherspoon’s Tim Martin as the nation’s barometer of all things affordable, stated that:

What’s not helpful is when something comes out that surprises us – that’s what happened with the National Insurance last year…it’s quite hard to plan and manage a business when you have a £20 million hit that you hadn’t predicted.

Currie repeated her belief that Greggs represents good value in these increasingly straitened times.

She is almost certainly correct. Meanwhile, Greggs’s rivals are feeling the pinch, too. Pret, for so long the aloof arbiter of middle-class tastes, has now pivoted away from telling their customers that they are lucky to be given their jambon beurre at such reasonable prices given its quality and have launched their first meal deal. Every single supermarket (yes, even Waitrose) will sell you a sandwich or salad, drink and snack for a fiver or less. You can eat and drink like a king, or at least a deposed member of minor royalty, at Wetherspoon for under a tenner if you find the right evening to visit. And the likes of Pizza Express and The Ivy offer loyalty schemes that mean that committed customers can enjoy lavish freebies if they continue to offer their patronage on an even half-regular basis.

Greggs is unlikely to be adversely affected by the Budget next month, although who knows what fresh hell our Chancellor is going to unleash on the hospitality industry. But Britons are increasingly turning either to financial belt-tightening or, thanks to the Mounjaro and Ozempic jabs, an altogether different kind of trouser-fastening.

As such, the calorific delights offered by the nation’s favourite baker might yet be endangered. For the sake of a hearty, thoroughly enjoyable treat, let us hope that these price rises are the last for a considerable time to come, although I fear that, as with so much else, the war on jollity is only just beginning.