The UK market may lack a bona fide world-beater such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TW:2330 or US:TSM) or Hermès (FR:RMS). But there is Greggs (GRG). As millions of Brits will either happily admit or publicly deny, when life presents its time-, cash- or imagination-strapped moments, there is always Greggs.
I throw no shade. Many customers are loyal and – to use an irritating word – ‘intentional’ in their buying. Plus, if it was easy to make money hawking iced fingers and steak bakes at scale, someone would have done it long ago (that a much wider array of independent bakeries once filled this role is another, more complicated story about social change and market forces).
Despite the chain’s 1951 Tyneside roots, its national prominence as a fast-food giant remains a fairly recent phenomenon. At its 1984 IPO, it had 261 shops across four regional divisions. By 2001, this had grown to more than 1,100, split across the Greggs and Bakers Oven chains, which were consolidated under a single marque from 2008. Today, there are almost 2,500 Greggs outlets.