I have worked for Greggs on Saturdays in the Greater London area for nearly four years! From a young naive sixteen year old starting her very first job with false and frankly idealist perceptions about working to a seasoned worker of twenty years old understanding the value of money and realising that I should be better paid! The reason I stayed for so long was that the shift pattern on Saturdays and the occasional Sunday fitted neatly into my schedule as I completed my A Levels and I am now in my final year at University. The people I worked with were and are so funny and friendly and we have all had to laugh at the realities of our customer service role - the fussy, often rude customers, broken equipment and trying to attempt DIY, and working as a team to beat sales targets and increase our profit share!
The History of Greggs:
John Gregg founded Greggs in the 1930s in Tyneside as a family bakery and since the 1960s; the brand expanded rapidly and has spread over the UK with over 1000 shops presently nationwide. The website www.greggs.co.uk provides a very detailed history of the development of the company and interesting details, such as Greggs shops 'serve approximately 4 million customers each week through our shops.'
The Shop I work in and Customers:
Saturday is the busiest day of the week. There are three branches in my town centre and I work in the newest, largest and busiest shop. Greggs branches are often very conveniently located, the shop I work in is easily accessible to people on their lunch break as well as families and shoppers who fancy a snack or a quick lunch. Therefore, around 11.30 to 2.30, the shop is very busy and we sell out of many products. Last week, for example, was exceptionally busy because it seemed like the whole town was out and about Christmas shopping! The queues can go outside the shop and even though our shop tries to minimise waiting time by having more than enough staff working, it really depends on the customers as well. At times, the queue system does get a little messed up, for example when we are cleaning, so please just ask how the queue is arranged if unsure.
It always surprises me that someone who has been waiting for two minutes only thinks about what they want or get their money ready after we have asked to serve them! Since being on the serving side of the counter, I have never said 'can I have one of those?' because I really cannot see what you are pointing at! As in any customer service role, I have had to deal with aggressive and rude people as well as putting queue jumpers at the back of the line. Often, customers start arguing amongst themselves about who should be served next - I refuse to get involved in fear of them both ganging up and let them decide amongst themselves. However, a while ago, two women were about to have a physical fight in front of a packed shop over who was first and the funny thing was that the both only wanted one item each! Nevertheless, the majority of customers are brilliant, really friendly and if they are unsure of want they, accept our recommendations to help speed up service.
Sandwiches:
I personally love Greggs sandwiches because I know that the ingredients are fresh and that we follow strict hygiene and cleanliness regulations. All our sandwiches are made fresh on the day. Many people are shocked that we do not use gloves to make the sandwiches but a company of Greggs size really does know what its doing and follows all legal codes. Learning to make the range was relatively easy but speed comes with practice - lots of practice to the extent that I make a very mean sandwich at home! Our shop makes sandwich wedges, bloomer bread sandwiches or xtra bites, baguettes (my favourite!), soft bites and oval bites. Our cheapest sandwich is egg mayo costing £1.05 and our most expensive sandwiches are £2 including the Chicken Club (chicken breast, mayo, lettuce and bacon.) You can expect to pay around £1.50-£1.90 for traditional sandwich fillings such as Tuna Sweetcorn, Cheese Salad and Chicken Salad.
If your favourite sandwich has finished, don't be afraid to ask if there are any more in the back or if one could be made up. In our shop, we often put a few sandwiches that are very popular in the back fridge so that when they finish in the rush hours, we can quickly replace them. However, after about 3 pm, we tend not to make any more sandwiches because we have other jobs like cleaning to do. However, we do not make up special orders - meaning you choose which ingredients you want in your sandwich, so if you do not want tomatoes in your chargrill chicken oval bite (£1.95) you will have to take them out yourself because we are not allowed. Another thing that we are not allowed to do in our shop is cut soft bites or baguettes in half because we received many complaints that the filling was falling out.
Also, if you are having a party or special event, our shop will prepare a large number of sandwiches for you. We recently had an order for a range of twenty sandwiches, which the person took away and could cut into smaller triangles and serve. Ordering larger quantities in advance means that the sandwiches you want will not have run out by the time you get there and you can quickly pick up your sandwiches at the arranged time and go without having to wait.
Unfortunately, our division stopped doing sandwich meal deals but we often have special offers on specific sandwich lines. Recently we did an xtra bite promotion where customers were given a collector card, which was stamped every time they bought one and the sixth xtra bite was free! In addition, because of Christmas, our Christmas sandwiches were part of a meal deal for £2.99! So, when you are next in a Greggs shop, just ask if there any promotions running on sandwiches but the person serving you should inform you anyway. Also, 90% of our sandwiches have mayo in them and the majority of the products, which do not use mayo, are ham sandwiches. Also, our tuna is dolphin safe. (I have been asked many times by customers so I thought I'd let you know!)
Savouries:
Obviously, our trademark savoury is the jumbo sausage roll!
We currently have a promise on the availability of sausage rolls in our division and if they are not available and you wanted them, you can request a voucher so that it is free the next time you visit Greggs. Therefore, in order to maximise profit, our shop always tries to make sure jumbo sausage rolls are ready, hot and on hand. Funny story - I was asked if I would be prepared to dress up in a sausage roll costume and hand out leaflets which I thought would have been a great laugh and because no-one would see my face! The pizza baguette is relatively new compared to the other pasties and I think it is delicious and well worth a £1. The most popular savoury in our shop is most definitely cheese and onion, and during rush hours, we sell so many! I would give you prices of our savouries but they are frequently increasing by a few pennies every so often so I will give you a rough price range. The sausage rolls are around £0.65 each or two for £1.20, the popular pasties - veg and cheese and onion are under £0.90 each and chicken is under £1 but the less popular but meaty pasties like steakbake and supreme are around £1.05 each.
Unfortunately, our less popular pasties have a tendency to be quite cold because less people are buying them and our most popular pasties sell out very quickly. It is often very difficult to manage the savouries effectively because in a way, you have to predict how busy the shop will be in half an hour when the pasties you are putting in the oven will be ready. We do try to have everything available but when one customer comes and buys eight chicken and eight cheese and onion, it can mess up the best of plans for availability.
Breads and Cakes:
I love Greggs bread - it's official! The smell of fresh bread in the morning is brilliant. Our bread comes straight from the Greggs factory. BIG TIP - come in the morning for bread because by around 3 pm most of it has sold out on a Saturday. Expect to pay nearly £1 for large loaves and bloomers bread but they taste great - lovely crust and soft on the inside. We slice the bread, thick or medium or half and half for the indecisive or if you like medium for toast and thick for sandwiches. We recently introduced two small seeded loaves - oaty loaf and the six seeded bread, which are pretty pricey £0.70 and £0.85 respectively, but they are lovely with soup! I'm not a big roll fan, (I find the crusty roll much too crusty!) but again they finish very quickly on Saturdays.
Yummy cakes - they are my downfall - all those calories I burn from running around the shop and standing on my feet all day are put straight back on with a vengeance when I indulge! I tend to go through stages of loving one cake and then hating it and moving unto a different cake. At moment, my cake of month is split finger doughnut £0.50 which is made of artificial cream and is gorgeous! We sell many doughnuts, there are around six main types - jam, iced, glazed, sugar, chocolate and caramel as well as the mini doughnut packets.
We normally bag up our cakes into the special promotions and stack them on top of the counter to entice you into buying more. We carefully display our cakes and make sure that they look nice because if you are anything like me - you buy mostly with your eyes! Again, please try to come in the morning for cakes because our popular cakes, like doughnuts and fresh creams cake sell out over lunchtime.
Other products:
We sell chilled soft drinks and Walkers crisps in our shop. Obviously different Greggs shops sell different regional products. Additionally, hot drinks are one of our popular sellers in winter and in the morning. We use real coffee beans in our shop and the coffee - regular, latte and americano (black) is very strong and very competitively priced, £0.90 compared to other food retailers. Our shop runs a special promotion on coffee - every time you buy a coffee, get your coffee collector card stamped and you sixth coffee is free! Regularly, we offer cakes at discounted prices when you purchase coffee, for example, our shop is offering a mince pie for 10p when you purchase a coffee. We also sell tea - using Tetley tea bags and hot chocolate using Cadburys mix. We also Heinz soup, which has been selling massively because of the cold - £0.85 for a cup full.
Overall:
I have enjoyed working for Greggs but once I finish University next year, I will be leaving because the job can be very stressful at times - multitasking is not easy! I get a massive 50% of Greggs products, which is great, but not for my figure! I can apply for a staff discount card to use when I'm not at work but I have not applied because I never really go to Greggs when I'm at University as the nearest branch is about 25 minutes away. The products are fresh, delicious and very reasonably priced! Perhaps if seating areas were established, the company could help customers and increase profit. Greggs has tried to give back to the community, the company pays most of the expenses of the Children's Cancer Run, provides free Breakfast Clubs for 75 schools and recently sold biscuits specifically for Children in Need. I think that for people who need a part time supplementary income such as parents, students and those who need to gain work experience, Greggs is a perfectly fine place to work. The bakery is very handy for people who fancy a quick bite to eat or feel like spoiling themselves with a yummy jammy doughnut!
(The examples and prices I have listed are specific to shop in Greater London and therefore may not apply to other areas.)
www.greggs.co.uk
The website provides contact details for shops and division offices closest to you location.
Greggs are great! 
