Greggs has faced a media storm after a customer asked the bakery why it was unable to buy a loaf of bread in a store.
However, this is not a new admission. As previously revealed, Greggs has done away with the in-store bakery and is repositioning itself in the food-to-go market.
The ‘no loaves in Greggs’ backlash has even reached as far as BBC News, despite this essentially being old news.
The bakery announced in its 2013 full-year results that it would be focusing on the convenience sector and, in January 2014, it announced it would close all in-store bakeries.
It now has nine central bakeries which provide stock to all 1,671 outlets.
A Greggs spokesperson said: “Many customers are now coming to us for bakery food-on-the-go products, including sandwiches, which are freshly prepared in store every day and made using our own bread.
“While loaves of bread can still be purchased in a number of our shops where we see high levels of customer demand, we also understand that customer shopping habits and needs are changing and have adapted accordingly.”
The bakery was unable to share with us the number of shops that did sell loaves of bread.
Food journalist Andrew Webb told the BBC that he was worried that bread was in danger of becoming “little more than a carbohydrate glove” to prevent sandwich fillings from spilling. He said, “We treat bread these days a little like we treat tea or milk. We just want the cheapest available. It’s the product that gets thrown out the most.”
British Baker’s #WeLoveBread campaign has been working with bakeries to boost the hype around bread and stop the loaf being demonised in the media.
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