A Newcastle-founded UK bakery and food-to-go chain with about 2,500 shops, known for sausage rolls and its charitable Foundation.
Greggs is a British bakery and food-to-go chain. It sells sausage rolls, pastries, pizzas, sandwiches, cakes, baguettes, doughnuts and breakfast items, including a vegan sausage roll and freshly ground Fairtrade espresso. Its corporate site says it has more than 2,700 shops (an older page says over 2,600), about 500 of them with franchise partners, and Wikipedia lists about 2,500 locations and 33,000 employees for 2026. Figures vary by source and date.
The story begins with John Gregg delivering fresh eggs and yeast by bicycle to families in Newcastle. He founded the company in 1939 and opened a first shop on Gosforth High Street in 1951, and a Greggs still trades there, according to the company and Wikipedia. After he died in 1964 his son Ian took over. The company later grew through bakery acquisitions such as Rutherglen in Glasgow in 1972 and Thurston's in Leeds in 1974.
Greggs says it is "committed to doing good" and describes itself as hard-working but "above all else we're family". Its corporate site says its vision is to be the customers' favourite for food-on-the-go, and that its values are to be friendly, inclusive, honest, respectful, hardworking and appreciative. It launched the Greggs Pledge in 2021 with ten commitments based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The Greggs Foundation provides free breakfasts to primary school children with over 100 partners, and the company is a long-standing supporter of the Children's Cancer Run.
Greggs is based in Newcastle upon Tyne and moved its head office in 2016 from Jesmond to Quorum Business Park in Longbenton, North Tyneside, according to Wikipedia. Shops are across the UK, and the company makes its food in its own manufacturing centres of excellence and moves it to shops itself. Wikipedia says nine regional bakeries (as of 2019) make locally specific products such as Scotch pie in Scotland. It says it opened on average four new shops a week in 2025 and aims for significantly more than 3,000 shops.
The company says it has more than 33,000 colleagues, and that its fast and friendly shop experience is a key reason customers return. The mix of jobs therefore runs from shop teams and delivery work to manufacturing, logistics and support teams, which it names as one of its four strategic pillars alongside food, customer experience and supply chain. The pages we read did not list roles in detail, so check Greggs' own jobs pages for current openings.
Website: corporate.greggs.co.uk
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