The coupling is such a coup, and bringing together their respective fans a canny move from both sides. We’d expect to see Nigella fronting a Gail’s Christmas, touting cranberry-studded artisan sourdough for a tenner a taste, but hawking Greggs festive bakes for £1.95 is an unanticipated move for the food world’s poshest player.
Might Nigella actually convince consumers to dial in or drive thru a Greggs on Christmas morning? Unlikely. That’s probably as far-fetched as the ad itself, which shows Nigella describing Greggs’ festive menu in typically high camp form, before revealing her grand spread of “sweet mince pies, aromatic gingerbread lattes, gorgeous Christmas lunch baguettes.”
The film oozes as much indulgence as one of her own trifles, presenting Nigella as a caricature of her existing telly persona who outdoes even her own exceedingly sensuous approach to describing food – the approach that has won her millions of fans and sales all over the world. “Succulent filling, creamy sauce, all wrapped up in the flakiest of flaky pastries,” she swoons. “In one, or both, hands, say hello to the Greggs festive bakes.” She even describes her own “fairy light-festooned” kitchen as the “Greggs Christmas grotto”.
Plenty of TV chefs have imitated her sybaritic style, but Nigella is without a doubt the queen of her own camp when it comes to sexing up any kind of a menu, whether cheap pork products or a luxury spread. Still, I think we can all agree that if the domestic goddess herself is anywhere near pastry on 25 December, it will be patisserie of the highest quality, laden with blankets of finest smoked salmon and puddles of priceless caviar.
In fact, as soon as Greggs announced she was to front its Christmas menu, and well before the ad had even aired for the first time, pastry snobs got their knives out for the celebrity chef. Cynical commentators claimed that Nigella wouldn’t go near Greggs’ flagship product, its infamous sausage roll, in real life, and had snubbed the manufacturer’s golden egg – only agreeing to publicise its seasonal menu. The accusations threatened to overshadow the ad, leading Nigella to release a statement doubling down on her support for the chain. “As a longtime fan of Greggs, and especially their sausage rolls, I’m thrilled to be collaborating with them to celebrate the return of the iconic Christmas menu,” she said.
Will droves of new audiences now flock to the high street bakery chain? I don’t doubt that her support will encourage plenty of people to take another look at its offerings. Price-wise, it’s very hard to find a filling snack for under £2. Especially if you’re shopping at Ocado, the online retailer Nigella also fronts. As a decidedly upmarket shop, I wonder what Ocado makes of the Greggs association. Maybe it will benefit, too.
What’s more, we’ve trusted Nigella’s taste until now, from coca cola ham to peanut butter pasta. Surely her opinion is also on the money with Greggs? It’s certainly a stroke of genius from the growing food business as it continues its campaign to conquer the middle classes. Greggs first turned heads in 2019, with the launch of its vegan sausage roll for Veganuary.
Since then, it has rolled out a series of smart stunts such as its current pop-up champagne bar in Fenwick, Newcastle, where the company is headquartered, selling Louis Roederer champagne at £75 a glass, alongside slightly cheaper glasses of Bollinger and Laurent Perrier and a £10 prosecco. The champagne bar is the successor to last year’s Bistro Greggs, which served steak bakes with classy French side dishes and Yum Yums as part of a tiered afternoon tea.
Not hungry? Get yourself a piece of the Greggs jewellery selection, launched for London Fashion Week in September, including gold-plated charm bracelets, earrings and necklaces featuring sausage rolls, jammy hearts and takeaway coffees cups.
It was so clever for Greggs to launch its festive ad late on Sunday afternoon, stealing a march on the big supermarkets such as M&S and Aldi, which launched their Christmas ads on Monday. We can now watch Dawn French hosting an M&S Food soirée, the first of six ads taking us up to Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve. Aldi has a charming animation of Kevin & Katie carrots on a snow-filled adventure with a bunch of Bah-humbugs. Lidl has employed The King’s Speech director Tom Hooper to direct its cute festive gingerbread men. Sainsbury’s has the BFG, ASDA a storeful of garden gnomes.
As one of the few Brits who has never eaten a sausage roll from Greggs, I belong to an extremely small and ever diminishing group of UK residents, an exclusive club that looks set to all but disappear by Christmas. That’s right – not even a single bite of the hero product from Britain’s fast-growing high-street bakery chain has passed my lips. With 2,500 outlets, set to reach 3,000 in the next few years, the place isn’t easy to avoid.
Scoff if you will, I’m certainly not against a sausage roll. But I was vegetarian for many years. Later, I set up my own sausage roll business, selling gourmet pastry treats from a market stall and I am happy to admit that, at that point, I was too snobby to go near a Greggs. Now it has Nigella as the face of its first ever Christmas ad, might I give it a try? I haven’t planned my Christmas Day menu yet, so there’s everything to play for, but I don’t quite have the appetite for fingering an oily festive feast in both hands, as Nigella does.