Greggs is a real success story. Having been established by John Greggs in the 1930s as a family bakery business on Tyneside, we’re now one of the UK’s leading bakery retailers with over 1.100 Greggs shops nationwide.

After John Gregg’s death in 1964 his son, Ian, took over the management of the business. Under Ian’s leadership, the company embarked on an ambitious expansion plan, first in the North East and then in other regions of the UK.

Our growth in the North East centred on an increase in shops numbers, each supplied from our bakery in Gosforth. However, in line with our ’baker-fresh’ ethos products were, and still are, freshly baked on the shop premises. We also continue to produce many local, traditional product lines (such as stotties in the North East and scotch pies in Scotland) which are still extremely popular with our customers.

Expansion outside the North East was driven by the acquisition of local, established bakery chains and built on the same fundamental principles of great taste and great value. In 1972 Greggs moved into Scotland with the creation of Greggs of Rutherglen. We also established Greggs of Yorkshire following the purchase of Thurstons in Leeds and, in the same year, Greggs of the North West was founded after the purchase of Price’s bakery chain based in Manchester.

By 1984 Greggs had 261 shops across these four divisions and we made the decision to float on the Stock Exchange. Further growth over the next 10 years came as a result of more shop openings in our established divisions as well as further acquisitions in new regions. Three acquisitions in quick succession saw the formation of Greggs of the Midlands in 1984, Greggs of Treforest in 1985 and Greggs of Enfield in North London a year later.

By 1994 the company had grown to seven regional divisions operating more than 500 shops. The acquisition of the retail bakery interests of Allied Bakeries Ltd enabled us to venture into new geographic markets and the conversion of 90 of these shops in south and west London created our eighth regional division - Greggs of Twickenham. This was recently merged with Greggs of Enfield to create Greggs South East serving central and Greater London and the surrounding counties. The last of the eight current Greggs divisions was formed by the acquisition of Birketts, a family company based in the Lake District, in December 1996.

Over the years Greggs has evolved from a traditional high street baker into the leading UK specialist retailer of sandwiches, savouries and other bakery products for the takeaway food market; these product categories now account for around two thirds of the group’s total sales. Above all there is an emphasis throughout the Group on constantly improving the quality, consistency, value-for-money and sheer enjoyability of its products. Today there are over 1,100 Greggs outlets throughout the UK, but significant potential for further expansion has been identified both within existing trading areas and in those parts of the country where the Group is currently unrepresented.