Ian Gregg - Bread: The Story of Greggs

Ian Gregg is a former MD of Greggs the Bakers and the son of its founder. Actively involved in the company until 2007, first on the shop floor and finally as Chairman, he was responsible for developing the business from a single shop in 1964 on Tyneside into a public company with several regional bakeries and hundreds of shops. He established the Greggs Charitable Trust, focussing on relieving social deprivation, and has been actively involved in environmental conservation for many years. He lives in Cumbria.

When Ian Gregg was just a boy he joined his father at work selling pies from his van to miners wives in Newcastle. Now retired, he can look back on a business that began as a husband and wife team in the 1930s, and survived a world war and two major recessions to become our favourite bakery, beloved by everyone from children to office workers to soldiers overseas.

Ian Gregg led the family firm as it grew, employing generations of families from around Newcastle and then becoming a public company with bakeries in Scotland and across the North, and now with shops on every high street. This is a story of extraordinary success, but it is also a triumphant tale of how doing right by your people makes for great business. Bucking every trend, Greggs have always put their customer, employee and local community before quick profits for directors and shareholders. Their astounding record of charitable works includes hardship grants, an environment fund, sponsorship of the North East Childrens Cancer run and over 1 million raised annually for Children in Need.

Ian Gregg will donate all of his royalties and Greggs plc will donate all its profits from the sale of this book to the Greggs Foundation to help fund more Breakfast Clubs for children.

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BREAD: THE STORY OF GREGGS
A CORGI BOOK: 9780552169493
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781448168552

First publication in Great Britain in 2013 by Corgi, an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Corgi edition published 2013

Copyright Ian Gregg 2013

Illustrations Neil Gower 2013

Cartoon Chris Griffin 2013

Ian Gregg has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

This book is a work of non-fiction.

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This book is for all the great people who work and have worked for Greggs, and all the customers who keep coming every day.

The Greggs Foundation was established in 1987 by Ian Gregg. Now in its 27th year, it has grown from a small grant-making trust to an independent charity currently donating 1.5 million per year. In the north-east, its major grant programme gives grants of up to 45,000 over three years to help sustain the work of organizations that make a difference to the lives of people in need at the heart of Greggs local communities. Also in the north-east, the hardship fund provides grants of 50150 for individuals who suffer from poverty and financial exclusion via recognized social organizations, enabling the purchase of mattresses, cots, clothing, white goods and furnishing. The Greggs Foundation regional grants programme makes small grants nationwide of up to 2,000 via seven regional charity committees comprised of volunteer staff from Greggs to help community organizations provide new experiences for the most disadvantaged people. Finally, the Greggs Breakfast Club programme provides funding to give a free, nutritious breakfast each school day to over 10,000 primary school children across the country. In 2012, the Greggs Foundation provided 250,000 to fund 220 Clubs and is now working in partnership with over 30 businesses and social housing organizations to open even more Clubs.

Ian Gregg will donate all of his royalties and Greggs plc will donate all its profits from the sale of this book to the Greggs Foundation to help fund more Breakfast Clubs for children.

CONTENTS

The recipes included in the book are not the recipes used by Greggs today. They are small-scale, traditional or regional recipes similar to the ones from which Greggs recipes evolved.

Bread has been an important part of our diet for thousands of years, but since 1945 consumption has decreased nationally by two thirds

Greggs serves more than a million customers each day, employs at least 20,000 people, and operates more than 1,600 shops in the UK, from Aberdeen in the north to Bournemouth in the south, and from Lowestoft in the east to Haverfordwest in the west. The shops are served by strategically located bakery and distribution centres, which produce more than twenty-five million products each week, including approximately 2.5 million sausage rolls, two million doughnuts and at least three million bread rolls. Two million sandwiches are made fresh each day in the shops and are consumed by six million customers every week. Profits exceeded 53 million in 2011 and the staff share 10 per cent of the annual profits under the Greggs profit-sharing scheme.

It all began in the 1930s when my father, John Robson Gregg, started selling eggs and yeast from a bike around Newcastle upon Tyne. This book records the expansion of his business to what Greggs is today, some of the tragedies and triumphs along the way and the contribution of some of the main players, which unfolded not as part of any planned strategy (at least, not in the early years), but as the result of serendipity or managing serendipity.

The backdrop was the most extraordinary period in world history: the 193945 war and defeat of Hitler, followed by post-war recovery (during which periods my mother and father managed one way or another to keep Greggs going); the sweeping away of the traditional foundations of society that began in the 1960s as people sampled more freedom in their behaviour; the union domination and industrial unrest of the 1970s; the decline of the traditional heavy industries of coal, steel and ship-building on which the north-east was so dependent; and the controversial Thatcher years, which solved some of the most pressing problems, but also ushered in a period of greed and self-interest. It continues unabated today, after three terms of New Labour, the banking crash of 2008 and the prolonged recession that followed it.