Is Greggs the last bastion of a cheap sausage roll?

Metro

5 days ago

Pasties, pies and Wellingtons were staring back at Robbie Knox at the bakery in Balham, south London. Then he saw it.
A sausage roll. But then Robbie, a 48-year-old writer and YouTuber, saw the price…. a whopping £3.50.
'This was 2010, and I remember thinking it was outrageous,'Robbie told Metro, 'but then eating it, it was one of the best sausage rolls I've ever had.'
These days, though, Robbie has to pay slightly more than £3.50 for a sausage roll. Prices of one of Britain's most iconic snacks have skyrocketed in recent years.
To see just how expensive the humble sausage roll is, Metro visited 40cafés, caffs, bakeries, butchers and diners in London.
Of them, only 15 sold the pastry, mainly in upmarket coffee shops or train station bakeries.
The most expensive sausage roll we found won't be too surprising to any foodies reading this -The Ginger Pig.
The butcher's 'world-famous sausage roll', as the sign outside its Borough Market stand reads, is £7.
West Cornwall Pasty Co. sells chunky sausage rolls for £6.39, with a smaller-sized one for £1 less at its Waterloo Station branch.
Rise & Bloom, an independent coffee shop just south of Hoxton, have a price tag of £5.50 and is £6.50 on Deliveroo. Just by Russell Square, a branch of Store Street Espresso also flogged a BBQ-glazed sausage roll for £5.50.
The speciality coffee shop sold what tabloids dubbed the 'world's most expensive sausage roll' in 2023, at an eye-watering £7.20.
The bakery chain, Gail's, followed on a technicality – £5.30 if you want to eat in at the branch in King's Cross St Pancras, or £4.50 to go.
Two cafe franchises – F**koffee and Loafing – both sell chunky rolls sprinkled with herbs and spices for £5, the same price as the luxury department store Harrods does.
The cheapest sausage roll we found was at a kiosk within Baker Street called Treats, where riders can grab a beef sausage roll for £1.70.
Another budget pork in a duvet of puff pastry was Nibbles, a sandwich shop by Angel, selling them for £2.50.
While Maks News, a family-owned newsagent's on Columbia Road, has an in-store bakery that sells the go-to breakfast item for just £1.99.
All three are still a few more pennies than one of the most famous sausage rolls in the UK – by the bakery giant, Greggs.
A Greggs sausage roll once cost 85p – now it's at least £1.25, according to a Greggs price tracker.
The exact amount you'll pay for your Greggs sausage roll depends on where you live. Metro paid £1.55 for one outside Liverpool Street.
Based on our extensive research, Londoners have three options if they have a hankering for a freshly baked sausage roll: a cheap-ish one from Greggs or a pricier one from a posh coffee shop or a train station stand.
Baked goods are more expensive for a few reasons, Ebony Cropper, a cost of living specialist at Money Wellness, told Metro.
'The cost of ingredients like pork, butter, and flour has all gone up because of global supply chain issues, climate impacts on crops and ongoing food inflation,' she said.
'On top of that, pasty shops are facing higher bills for energy, water and rent, alongside rising staff costs because of the increase in the National Minimum Wage. All these pressures get 'baked' into the final price.'
As chefs experiment with the tried-and-true sausage roll recipe, none of these high-quality ingredients come cheap, explained Richard Price, a professional grocery buyer.
'When you're paying £5-£7 in a premium coffee shop, you're also covering the cost of the ambience, the quality of coffee served alongside, the packaging and the perceived exclusivity,' the founder of online supermarket Britsuperstore told Metro.
Metro reporter Josh Milton was out and about for a whole day trying the nation's favourite pastry.
This is his take on it all.
I grew up in a cramped council estate in Romford – even Sainsbury's felt posh to me.
So the thought of spending a fiver on a sausage roll brings me right back to wondering why my family never went on holiday like the other kids did.
But if there's one thing that clocking 38,000 steps taught me, it's that you really do get what you paid for in the world of pastries.
You know that a Greggs sausage roll will be good, but you also know it won't be dusted with herbs you've never heard of or packed with fillings you can't easily get in the supermarket.
The Greggs roll has and always will be my go-to, even now that I'm a vegetarian who can easily wolf down four vegan ones in two minutes.
Yet, if I'm in the mood to sit down and really appreciate this beloved parcel of pastry that has been popular in the UK for centuries, I know I'll have to spend a little more.
Train station bakeries also tend to be more expensive as they don't have a steady flow of customers; rather, they're 'grab and go' types, Vix Leyton, a consumer expert at Thinkmoney, said.
'This, coupled with the fact there is a captive audience, without the time or the option to shop around, means you will often be paying a convenience premium for that pasty you were daydreaming about between Sheffield and Stockport,' she added.
The Ginger Pig iconic breakfast snack has 200g of meat and 100g of puff pastry, a spokesperson told Metro.
'There's more meat than most burgers plus the equivalent of a posh croissant in every single one,' she said, adding that the bakers add a 'vaguely obscene quantity of real butter'.
'Mincing, laminating, chilling…it has to be done properly, no corners cut. Oh, and they simply must be enjoyed warm.'
James Mitchell, the group head chef at the Jolene in Newington Green, told Metro that the bakery's rolls use 'rare breed pork from Swaledale, a Yorkshire-based butchers', called Middlewhite and Oxford Sandy pigs.
'The sausage meat is seasoned with red wine, fennel seeds, garlic and black pepper before being wrapped in Jolene puff pastry,' they added. 'The pastry is made with regeneratively farmed flour from Wildfarmed and cultured butter from the Estate dairy.
'The sourcing of the ingredients is key to what we do and we feel this really shows through in the sausage roll.'
Not everyone can cough up a fiver for a sausage roll while they're rushing to work, as Laurence, a 29-year-old living in Hertfordshire, once did years ago as a prop worker. More Trending
For his YouTube channel, Lets Test Laurence, he's wolfed down the 'most expensive sausage roll' in the capital (Harrods) and the most 'famous' one (Greggs, of course).
He told Metro that even sausage rolls costing more these days make sense – it's London, after all.
'But for now, I'll continue to buy them,' Laurence said. 'Staple foods and drinks should be protected from inflationary pressures in London.
'Starting with beer and sausage rolls wouldn't be a bad place to begin.'
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