Gails vs Greggs is paying three times the price for a doughnut worth it?
Who will win the battle of the high street bakers? The budget chain Greggs is riding out the cost of living crisis with bumper profits, and has just announced plans to open 150 new stores and extend opening hours. (There is never a bad time to eat a sausage roll after all.) Meanwhile the upmarket, London-founded bakery/café Gail’s is also expanding with new locations in the North West and drive-thrus in London. So how do they compare on taste, value and calorie count? The Telegraph’s tasting panel compared the two chains’ most popular items, in a blind trial.
*All prices are for takeaways
The sausage roll
Gail’s: Herby, crumbly, with lots of sage and pepper. Our panel preferred the seeded pastry to Gregg’s and enjoyed the bouncy finish, but decided it was distractingly over-seasoned.
Greggs: Homely and reassuring with a classic finish. “It doesn’t try to be anything that it isn’t,” remarked one panellist.
WINNER: Greggs
The meat sandwich
Gail’s salami & cornichon: Noticeably the smaller of the two sandwiches, it feels like more of a canapé. Nice pairing of the salami with the gherkin, although the brioche bun is unnecessarily sweet and doesn’t quite work with the savoury filling.
Greggs sausage sandwich: The panel were resolutely disappointed. Summed up by one taster, remarking: “It’s the kind of thing you see pigeons eating in the park”.
WINNER: Gail’s
Coffee
Gail’s flat white: This was ruled the smoother of the two, although £3.30 is shockingly steep for 160ml of coffee.
Gregg’s flat white: Harsh, strong, unconvincing. While certainly the more affordable option, this coffee was ruled as tasting and smelling ersatz.
WINNER: Gail’s
The doughnut
Gail’s raspberry iced bun: The panel criticised the “unnecessary” sickly and artificial-tasting raspberry flavour.
Greggs jam doughnut: This gloriously classic jammy doughnut was a firm favourite. It reminded one of our test panel of the long hot summer of 1976: “It tastes of austerity,” they reminisced. The uneven jam distribution, another feature of the Cold War era, was also praised. “Irresistible.”
WINNER: Greggs
The sweet bun
Gail’s Cinnamon bun: Decadent. Elaborate. Indulgent. At almost three times the cost of its less glamorous Greggs counterpart, you can certainly taste the difference in this pastry, although our panel did note that it was very sweet. Everyone likes a sprinkling of cinnamon, but this bun has been doused in it.
Greggs Belgian bun: This “sad” iced bun didn’t impress. The heavy icing was deemed unsuccessful in masking the elongated, fibrous and papery lining of the cardboard-tasting bun.
WINNER: Gail’s
Our verdict
Despite their vastly different price points, when it comes to taste, Greggs and Gail’s are surprisingly evenly matched. Gail’s excels on coffee and pastry, and its iconic cinnamon bun is hard to beat. But Greggs does the classics well, with impressive value at a time when the cost of a simple filling lunch or hot snack is soaring. Calorie count is not a measure of quality, and portion sizes varied between the two – but in four out of the five items we tried, Gail’s offering was more calorific.
In short, both shops have something to offer.
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