Greggs unveiled its summer menu last week featuring an all-new vegan option.
For lunch, the bakery chain now offers the vegan Mexican Bean & Sweet Potato Wrap, which consists of sweet potato falafel with tomato and jalapeño sauce, peppers, and leafy greens.
The new wrap’s launch comes hot on the heels of Greggs’ success with its vegan sausage roll. Made from a meatless Quorn sausage wrapped in dairy-free puff pastry, Greggs’ vegan sausage roll launched early this year.
Greggs’ Vegan Success
Last January, Greggs chief executive Roger Whiteside acknowledged evolving customer eating habits in the UK. “Like many food retailers we have seen increasing demand for vegetarian and vegan products,” he said.
Vegan food is becoming mainstream across the UK. The nation launched more plant-based food products last year than any other nation, according to Mintel data. While the data is related to supermarkets, restaurants options are increasing as well — last spring and summer, vegan menu items in the UK increased 237 percent.
“There’s been such a big drive towards this vegan, flexitarian vibe,” said Ian Nottage, chef director for fruit and veg wholesale company Reynolds. “Sure, it’s still a small part of the market, but it’s easily the most vocal part so a lot of the restaurant operators know they must get on board as they can’t get away with just offering a veggie risotto anymore; it must be more creative than that!”
Trolling from “Good Morning Britain” host Piers Morgan — who famously said “Nobody was waiting for a vegan bloody sausage, you PC-ravaged clowns” — didn’t appear to deter sales. Greggs’ vegan sausage roll became its best-selling new product launch in six years.
According to chief executive Roger Whiteside last February, the number of sales was in the “hundreds of thousands.” It also may have inspired other recent vegan sausage roll launches, such as Tesco’s ready-to-eat version and the soy and chickpea-based sausage roll at Applegate gas stations in Ireland.
“Whilst there are significant uncertainties in the months ahead, Greggs has started 2019 in great form, helped in part by the publicity surrounding the launch of our vegan-friendly sausage roll,” Whiteside said.
Greggs new vegan summer wrap is available now.
