GREGGS has been sharing its dough with staff, handing out more than £200million over the past 50 years.
Britain’s biggest bakery chain has split ten per cent of its profits with workers ever since Ian Gregg, son of its founder, came up with the scheme in the 1970s.
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The Sun has totted up the “thank you” bonus payments to staff over the past 50, years which have continued even as a public company.
Last month record profits meant Greggs shared its biggest payday with a £17.6million bonus pot shared between 25,000 staff.
The average worker received £765.
Greggs has become one of Britain’s biggest success stories since launching an expansion plan over a decade ago and broadening its range beyond baked goods.
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It has more shops than McDonald’s or Starbucks and its bacon rolls have knocked McMuffins off the top spot for breakfast.
Greggs boss Roisin Currie told The Sun it will have 2,500 shops in the UK by the end of this month as part of her target to achieve 3,000.
It also plans to open six more of its Outlet shops by the end of this year, taking the total of the cut-price stores to 41.
Ms Currie said: “The great thing is people still see us as their local bakery in the community.”
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The business was started 80 years ago by John Gregg. It opened its first shop in 1951 in Gosforth, Newcastle.
Since it floated on the stock market in 1984 its shares have soared from 13.5p to £27.78 today, valuing it at £2.8billion.
I work at Greggs and there’s so many perks including free coffee and steak bake lunches
But fans of Greggs’ hats and sliders will be disappointed as Ms Currie said its fashion collaboration with Primark had ended for now.
Doing good is Greggs’ secret sauce
By Roisin Currie, chief executive at Greggs
IT’S been two years since I became CEO of Greggs and I’m incredibly proud of everything we do for our people, customers and communities.
“Doing good” has been an important part of Greggs for more than six decades, going back to when we served free pie ’n peas suppers to elderly residents in the 1960s.
It’s part of our secret sauce. We’re proud to be one of the UK’s largest food-to-go retailers, but one lesser-known part of our business is our Outlet shops.
Selling unsold products the next day at a big discount, the Outlets allow customers on a tight budget to enjoy their favourite goodies.
Our Outlets support our ambition to ensure all surplus food is redistributed to those who need it daily.
Tackling food waste is a huge problem, and accounts for 10 per cent of the UK’s greenhouse emissions.
The nation bins a staggering 9.5million tonnes of food every year. We collect around 50 tonnes of unsold products from local stores each week and redistribute them.
In 2023, we diverted over 2,600 tonnes of surplus food to our Outlet network — an increase of 44 per cent from 2022.
That’s over 2.6million sandwiches, 2.2million savoury snacks and 2.6million sweet treats saved from the bin! For items left on the shelves, we donate them to our network of 956 local charities or Too Good To Go.
Any surplus food not redistributed is sent to an anaerobic digestor. None of our surplus food goes to landfill.
With unsold sausage rolls, sandwiches and sweet treats finding their way to those in need, we’re not just supporting communities — we’re building a brighter, more eco-friendly future for all.
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AI Risks Power
The competition watchdog fears the rise of artificial intelligence risks tech firms abusing their “positions of power”.
Sarah Cardell, of the Competition and Markets Authority, said they had been monitoring deals between Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and NVIDIA. She said the CMA would protect consumers against reduced choice and higher prices because of AI.
And Amazon boss Andrew Jassy said generative artificial intelligence was “the largest tech transformation” in years.
Default rates on mortgages, credit cards and other household loans have risen recently and are expected to increase further in the coming months, the Bank of England has said. This is largely due to higher borrowing costs caused by the Bank raising rates.
Astra-nomical
More than a third of AstraZeneca shareholders rebelled against plans to pay its boss a £18.7million salary.
Pascal Soriot is already the best paid CEO in the FTSE 100, earning £16.9million last year, but the drug giant has raised his pay by £1.8million. Almost 36 per cent of investors voted against the pay plans but not a majority, meaning Mr Soriot will still bag his bumper payday.
AstraZeneca tried to sweeten things with its investors with a 7 per cent dividend increase yesterday.
Bargains chain is sold off
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Poundstretcher has been snapped up by the US owner of Majestic Wine and Punch pubs group.
Fortress Investment Group has been on a UK spending spree in the past couple of years and also tried unsuccessfully to buy supermarket chain Morrisons and holiday park Butlins.
The deal for the discount chain, which has 322 shops and 4,000 staff, comes after its owner explored a £250million stock exchange listing last year. The deal value has not been disclosed but it is enough for owner entrepreneur Aziz Tayub to retire.
Former Morrisons director Andy Atkinson will take over as chief executive.
He said: “Poundstretcher is an exciting business with huge potential.”
Rival Poundland yesterday reported a 0.7 per cent dip in half-year sales.
Lok stock is smokin’
Shares in Lok’n Store leapt by almost a fifth yesterday after the firm opened up to a £378million takeover.
Belgian rival Shurgard is paying £11.10p-a-share in cash, which sent Aim-listed Lok’n’Store to a new high.
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The takeover marks the disappearance of another London-listed business amid warnings about cheap British firms being vulnerable to overseas bidders.
The agreed deal will help expansion in the South East and Manchester.
SHARES
- Barclays down 5.84 to 183.64p
- BP down 0.10 to 520.00p
- Centrica up 4.30 to 130.30p
- HSBC down 16.50 to 646.70p
- Lloyds down 0.62 to 50.66p
- M&S up 3.00 to 258.70p
- NatWest down 5.90 to 272.50p
- Royal Mail down 1.00 to 229.20p
- Sainsbury’s down 7.40 to 259.80p
- Shell down 12.00 to 2,857.00p
- Tesco down 15.00 to 282.00p
