Whats going on with greggs?

tgon

66p for a cold sausage roll is borderline taking the pi** to me.

s_b

tgon wrote: »

66p for a cold sausage roll is borderline taking the pi** to me.

£2.35 for 4

although i only buy 1
how much is a mars bar these days then?
work rest and play:D

Errata

RTMandan wrote: »

Also they never have anything left if you go after two o clock. i know they are busiest at lunchtime but sometimes they have nothing left after lunch, no pastys, no pizza and no sandwiches. what is the point of staying open?

Does this happen at every branch or just mine, I am in Leeds.

Just a guess - they stay open because they're a bakers and sell bread, rolls and cakes and just happen to also sell snack food at lunchtime for those people who need a lunchtime snack. I imagine the number of people who are gagging for a pasty, pizza or sandwich after two o'clock is vanishing small. They'll be thinking of buying a cake to have with their afternoon cuppa.

I_know_my_ABC_and_my_CMYK

rustyboy21 wrote: »

Oh No another Greggs thread.

What was gleaned from previous posts was the following....

1. Greggs bake daily instore.
2. Because of this, you will not pay VAT on said products, as they are left to cool under the heat lamps which will keep them warmer longer.
3. If greggs were to heat up a product again for you, you would be liable to pay VAT on the purchase.
4. Leaving them to slowly cool in the heat lamps, will not make them more susceptible to bacteria. In fact heating one up for you could actually be worse.
5. If you leave it until 2 pm to buy a pasty, then it will be cooler than at 12-1pm. Due to above.
6. They are a business, they have to factor in wastage into there business model, to make it viable. Putting a tray of pasties in at 3pm, when you closed at 4.30-5pm is not economically viable.
7. I like my pasties cool, IMO they have more taste than very hot ones. I have never had any ill effect from eating them.
8. I have heard in the past , they have been hit by legal action of burns from buying products just out of oven. This is why they don't immediately put cooked product straight on display.
9. You save paying VAT on them. What is stopping you nuking them back to hot in the office/home? If you cannot do that, then you have to make a considered decision on whether to buy or not.

Hope above helps

You can't possibly be serious??

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

RTMandan

ust a guess - they stay open because they're a bakers and sell bread, rolls and cakes and just happen to also sell snack food at lunchtime for those people who need a lunchtime snack.

Thats strange as Id say the ones near me are more sandwich/pasty shops than bakeries. I only ever see aboyt three or four loaves of bread on the shelf. in the afternoon everyone seems to buy sandwiches from them where i am.

z1985m

I think it's more the fact that their bakes always used to be kept warm.

now everything just seems to be cold.

so they obviously used to keep their products warm. why have they stopped this? if it's to do with VAT......then it didn't affect them before?

rustyboy21

I_know_my_ABC_and_my_CMYK wrote: »

You can't possibly be serious??

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Yep ! If you have a problem with the VAT aspect I would take it up with authorities

shaun_from_Africa

The HMRC definitions of when food needs to have VAT charged on it.

4.1 What is the liability of take-away food and drink?

Hot take-away food that has been heated for the purposes of supplying it hot is always standard-rated. Cold take-away food and drink is zero-rated, provided it is not of a type that is always standard-rated (such as crisps, sweets, beverages and bottled water).Hot drinks are standard rated. Further information can be found in Notice 701/14 Food.

4.4 What about freshly cooked products?

If you sell freshly cooked products for consumption while they are still hot they are standard-rated, see paragraph 4.5.
Some of these products are, however, not sold with such an intention They may only be hot/warm as they are in the process of cooling down. Examples include pies, pasties, sausage rolls and similar savoury products, cooked chickens or joints of meat, bread products and croissants. The liability will depend, therefore, on how you prepare and sell them.

Naf

paddyrg wrote: »

Isn't it about time in the 'danger zone', and as such allowing the pasties to cool below 60-something degrees to anything above 4ish degrees increases that risk? Granted if the OP's 'stone cold' means 'chilled' as opposed to ambient temperature, I understand your comment, but otherwise I'd have thought keeping ex-hot food at ambient temperature would be worse than keeping it hot?

The bit in bold is your problem here, with limited knowledge you're making assumptions.

The 'danger zone' applies primarily to storing food prior to preparation for service, to food being stored after cooking with the intention of reheating later, and to food being reheated. the 5-63 degree range is where the food needs to be kept out of for long term storage.
Greggs' pasties and the like are in a different situation, and other food safety procedures apply instead:
When food has been cooked it needs to cool before it can be refrigerated, this is best done in a cool place - much like their display cabinets (which are not heated, for the record - otherwise the cream in their sweet pastries would go to mush - it is all kept ambient). Food held like this at a temperature between 8 and 63 Degrees can be safely served for up to two hours (it is still safe after this, in fact, but the legislation has to allow a certain safety buffer in the figures). Hence because the food is cooling after being cooked (despite not being intended for the fridge); and because food in this situation is perfectly safe for at least two hours, Greggs' 'Hot' (or not) pastries are perfectly safe.

marywooyeah

Not this again! I thought groundhogs day was in February!