Australian Ali Smith less than impressed with her lunch haul. She was expecting her food to be hot, but was left disappointed
A first trip to Scotland left an Aussie visitor baffled about a famous bakery chain
Ali Smith visited Edinburgh after travelling from Brisbane. And the TikTok poster wanted to sample well-known bakery Greggs which has amassed 380,000 followers. She went to one of the outlet’s shops after it was praised for its baked products. But she was less than impressed with her lunch haul, according to Edinburgh Live. Her reaction to the chain emerged on TikTok after stepping through its doors for the first time.
She said: “Let’s go to Greggs for the first time and do a taste test on a few different things! You guys have been telling me I have to go to Greggs, so I got these yum yums – and apparently my granny used to get these. That’ll be exciting. I [also] got a steak bake, and a sausage roll.” After finding the packet containing her food in her pocket Ali was left disappointed. She said: “Why is it cold? It’s not warm at all.”
Her friend, who also came to the Greggs outlet, said: “We can warm it up when we get home. There’s something about if they heat it up they have to pay more tax or something.” Ali continued to question the temperature of her food and added: “Surely a national brand can serve food hot? People can’t just go in there and get a cold sausage roll to have for lunch?”
Despite her scepticism, Ali then tries a yum yum and seems to enjoy it. She adds: “Please hold until we get home, because we have to heat up our own takeaway foods.” When she finally sampled the golden pastries, she confirmed they’re “really nice” – but remains confused. She adds: “The steams coming off of it, like it should be when you get it. I’m not letting that go by the way. That actually is very good, it’s a good time.”
Followers soon told Ali of the reason behind Greggs serving cold goods. One said: “There is heating tax in the UK, so that’s why you have to be on point when they pull it out the oven!” According to Greggs, bakes are put on the shelf to cool to keep prices lower and serve the “best quality product”. On the FAQs section on the Greggs site, they state: “We sell savouries that are freshly baked in our shop ovens, then put on the shelf to cool.
“We don’t keep them in a heated environment, use heat retaining packaging, or market them as hot because of this. As bakers, we believe that baking our savouries fresh each day gives customers the best quality product. If the sausage rolls and bakes were kept hot after they had been baked, then they would be subject to VAT and the customer would have to be charged a higher price, in the same way that we charge VAT on our hot sandwiches which are kept in a heated cabinet and are subject to VAT.”
