For the first time ever, the nations most loved bakery has allowed cameras into its kitchen to capture the magic behind their best bakes.
High street favourite Greggs sells one million sausage rolls each day, has more than 2,000 stores around the UK and is now the star of its very own TV show, Greggs: Secrets of Their Best Bakes on Channel 5.
The popular bakery was launched by Newcastle baker John Gregg in Gosforth in 1939, with items flying off the shelves ever since.
Fans of the brand even wear its yellow and blue clothing range and it is often the go-to-choice for celebs like Line of Duty's Vicky McClue who once fed her crew with a van full of Greggs pastries.
As reported in the Mirror, the documentary is fronted by Grace Dent who said it is no surprise the chain is a Northern success story.
“Geordies feel they absolutely own Greggs,” she reveals. “We tried to find a Geordie who had never tried a Greggs, with the idea we’d take them there for the first time. But everyone we asked laughed in our face! Geordies have this real persona of being chirpy, down to earth and always tell the truth, and that always comes through in the Greggs brand.”
With more than 70 different items on the menu - the most expensive, at £9.20, is the pepperoni pizza sharing box, with six servings - the chain has got its sales pitch down to a fine art.
Their signature sausage roll is produced in a central factory in vast batches before being distributed around the country. Staff in-store bake the tasty treats for precisely 18 minutes before loading them into the glass display cabinets still warm.
And to avoid confusion over the beige bakes, Greggs has even marked each one differently so you can tell the pastries apart straight away.
While a steak bake features diagonal slashes, the chicken bake is marked with wavy lines and arrows slash across the cheese and onion bake.
Horizontal marks are placed across the sausage and baked bean melt, with beef and vegetable pasty distinctly marked by its ‘humptiback’ -Geordie slang for the pinched frills along the arched top.
But the secret markings aren't only used to help differentiate between products, they keep the pastry moist but not soggy by letting steam escape in the oven.
“You’re looking for some breakage in the pastry but as you can see they’re evenly spaced for even lift on the product. It’s always science,” says Sukina Coyle, Regional Process Development Manager.
A glaze is applied instead of egg wash to show the “highlights and lowlights” of the roll.
“Every time you’re eating that pastry, you’re biting into 96 individual layers of flakey pastry, and that’s what contributes to this flakiness in terms of the textures you experience each time,” explains Supply Chain Quality Manager Errol Eland.
A single layer more than 96 and you’d start to see cracking at the sides.
The most closely guarded secret of the bakery chain is its sausage roll seasoning mix and even the production workers are kept in the dark about its exact recipe.
The white sauce of the chicken bake is souffled using a ‘high shearing’ technique to help with aeration, which could never be replicated at home.
No matter its secrets, Greggs has built up an enormous fan base over the years. It’s not just businesspeople and tradies who flock to its stores: celebrities including rapper Stormzy, singer Ed Sheeran and Oasis rocker Noel Gallagher have all confessed their obsession with Greggs, and even Hollywood star Jake Gyllenhaal has admitted he can’t stay away from the bakery when he’s in the UK.
One final life hack from the experts is to study your filled doughnut next time you get one, says bakery manager Mark Moody.
“If you can spot the injection site you should eat that side first, as that’s where the filling will ooze out,” he winks.
Greggs pastry code:
Steak bake - diagonal slashes
Chicken bake - squiggly lines
Cheese and onion bake - arrows
Sausage and bean bake - horizontal stripes
Beef and vegetable pasty - a ‘humptiback’
* Greggs: Secrets of Their Best Bakes airs on Wednesday at 8pm on Channel 5.
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