As veganism has grown in popularity, so have sales at companies including Greggs, Leon and Dr Martens – and not only of their animal-free wares


ven as it was unfolding in the first cold days of Veganuary 2019, the launch of the Greggs vegan sausage roll felt like something marketing experts and cultural commentators would be pulling apart for years to come. Who knows: future historians may yet see it as a key turning point in the lead-up to the second English civil war (2020-27).

What is certain is that it was good for Greggs: its profits leapt more than 50%, to £40.6m, in the first six months of 2019. Even as Piers Morgan was raging about “PC-ravaged clowns” on social media, queues were forming at Greggs branches up and down the land and the Quorn factory in Darlington, where the filling is made, was going into overdrive. It was hard to keep up with demand for the piping-hot, fermented-fusarium-venenatum-strain-PTA-2684-based snack.


“We set out to get as much publicity as we could – don’t get me wrong,” says Roger Whiteside, Greggs’ CEO. “But we soon found ourselves holding a tiger by the tail.” It was a beast that Whiteside had been cultivating carefully for some time, as part of what has been a highly successful six-year strategy to transform the 80-year-old Newcastle-upon-Tyne-based bakery into a 21st-century “on-the-go” brand. Its shares have doubled in value over the past year.

Part of that strategy involved selling more coffee (Greggs is now Britain’s third-biggest coffee retailer, ahead of Starbucks), part of it involved selling sandwiches (it is now the second-biggest player in the ready-made sandwich market) and part of it involved expanding its range to cater to modern tastes and choices: low-calorie porridges, gluten-free brownies and a sausage roll that would appeal not only to vegans but also to “flexitarians” trying to reduce their meat consumption. “It took us a long time to do that,” says Whiteside. “Almost two years of recipe testing.”


The snack was launched with all the fanfare of an Apple product. “It was sort of a parody of all those iPhone launches,” Whiteside recalls. “We thought it might only last a few weeks. But it was selling out within minutes of arriving in the shops. And what was interesting about it was it had a sort of double effect. People arrived looking for that product. But once they were in Greggs they saw what else we did.”




The vegan sausage roll is now one of Greggs’ five bestsellers, but sales of all of its ranges have increased to the point that Whiteside was able to distribute a £35m special dividend to shareholders in July. The company is looking into vegan versions of its other bestsellers.



One way of looking at this is that veganism is great for business. Another is that vegan sausage rolls are a great marketing tool for pork sausage rolls.


Greggs is emblematic of the “vegan halo” effect, by which companies that have embraced veganism have reaped the rewards. In May, the “fast-casual” chain Leon reported that its sales for 2018 were up 24.5% to £95m. A lot of that is down to offerings such as jack wings, in which jackfruit replaces fried chicken, and the beetroot-based love burger. In January 2018, 46% of Leon’s sales were vegetarian, while 34% were vegan. By January 2019, those totals were up to 64% and 55%. The Love burger is the chain’s third-most popular item, prominently displayed on menus and posters.