Greggs
 | |
| Type | Bakery |
|---|---|
| Established | 1939 |
| Founder(s) | John Gregg |
| Headquarters | "Always where you don't want them" |
| Industry | Food |
| Revenue | £658.2 million (2009) |
| Employees | 19,000 |
Greggs is a British bakery chain with over 1,400 outlets, mainly located in the North of England, Scotland and Wales. It specialises in savoury[citation needed] products such as pasties, sausage rolls, and sandwiches.
The company deliberately locates its stores in deprived areas, hence its motto, "Always where you don't want them." The original logo 'Providing Shit to Scum for Over 70 Years' was changed in August 2014 after a sick puppy Google Algorithm missed the visual joke.[1]
History
Greggs was founded by John Gregg as a Tyneside bakery in 1939. The company concept was based on a classical syllogism:
- Crappy food is cheap to make.
- Only thick people prefer crappy food.
- Poor people are often thick — naturally; or else they'd figure out a way not to be poor.
The syllogism's conclusion was to locate shops in the most blighted parts of Blighty. The company pursued this concept in 1951 by opening their first shop in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, a poor, working-class city full of the very thickest Brits: the Geordies.
Since this humble beginning, Greggs have expanded their operations to over 1,400 stores in slum towns and crummy council estates throughout the UK. Their heartland is still the North-East, but they have also spread through Yorkshire, Scotland, Wales and the Midlands like rot on an animal carcass, accompanied by lines of pregnant 16-year-olds and benefit cheats, though no one knows whether this is a cause or an effect.
Ethical sourcing
All ingredients used by Greggs are ethically sourced. The main source of Greggs ingredients is organic food waste — 10% of it "post-consumer." Mr Gregg told his Board of Directors, "If swill is good enough for pigs, I feel our customers will slop it up!" Unfortunately, as a result of the 2001 outbreak of foot-in-mouth disease, the British government banned its use as animal feed, and the Board of Directors banned Mr Gregg from putting his own foot-in-mouth through further disparaging remarks about the customers. However, archives at Greggs headquarters assert that the company's practices kept tons of organic food waste from entering landfills. The company slept as well as a Prius owner, knowing that all the greenhouse gas emissions occurred elsewhere.
In 2011, Greggs returned to the recycling concept, becoming the first food retailer to bake with recycled motor oil. This followed a sharp rise in the price of cooking oil, and an influx of immigrants with their penchant for strange tastes in food. Loyal customers, as in the case of New Coke, met the reformulation with an uproar, but slashing the price of a sausage roll by 1p managed to end several riots.
Nutrition
The primary "nutrition" on the Greggs menu is saturated fat, salt and sugar. That is why the thick clientele also have thick arses.
House price effects
Middle class people in England, who never stop talking about the value of their homes, live in continual fear of a new Greggs franchise opening nearby and attracting poor people. Parliament have commissioned a study of possible changes to planning permits to solve the problem whilst not calling out Greggs by name, or at least not being obvious about it.
In Royal Berkshire, Greggs have been sued for felonious non-use of an apostrophe. However, while Britain have plenty of Law Lords, the nation is lacking at the moment in Grammar Lords, and Greggs are likely to skate on this charge.
Further expansion
As the economic and social devastation caused by the credit crunch dumps millions more Britons into abject poverty, the market for Greggs expands. In 2001, the company announced the creation of another 600 outlets in newly poor areas, to be known as Greggs Moment. These outlets will be inside caravans, which can be driven away in a Moment if the neighbourhood should get back on its feet again.
Marketing
Dozens of actresses and top models who are fans of pasties, sausage rolls, and sandwiches, such as Roseanne Barr, Paula Poundstone (when she was known as Paula Twentypoundstone), and footballer-thighs Charlotte Joines, have asked Greggs to use them as plus-size spokeswomen. Greggs, however, has a separate marketing strategy consisting of witty responses to various comments on Twitter.[2]