It takes a bold and ambitious forecourt operator to replace a big name food to go brand with an in-house newly-created alternative. But investing £100k in developing such an initiative looks like it will pay off for Top 50 Indie Park Garage Group (PGG). And now the business wants to convince others to follow.
In February the family business launched its Bakery 79 concept, replacing Greggs at 12 of its 80 sites. By the end of the year it is aiming for 20 of its forecourts to have the 70s vibe orange and brown brand, inspired by the year PGG was formed. And it hopes to start franchising out the package to other forecourt operators in 2026.
In the next two to three weeks PGG will introduce its first 3m self-serve version – similar to the Country Choice and Delice de France concept – at a newly-acquired Leicester site, one of three it bought from the Hockenhulls in June.
It is also introducing the initial Bakery 79 shop-within-a-shop concept at Park Westside in Peterborough, due to go live in September: another one of the sites bought from the Hockenhulls in June. And two other PGG locations which are undergoing substantial rebuilds with at least four bays for EV charging, and valeting – at Mogador, in Surrey, and Bearsted in Kent – will have the serve-over staffed units when they re-open in October.
Currently the business also six Subway and two Creams concessions.
Forecourt Trader visited the second busiest of the existing Bakery 79 outlets, at Wrotham Heath, near Tunbridge Wells, in Kent earlier this summer. We wanted to see why others might want to invest around £24k to take the branding, coffee machines, back office equipment, tills and card machines.
Husband and wife contract managers Rajan and Sashi Suppiah employ the five staff who work in the Bakery 79 part of the business, from 6am to 5pm.
The site, which turns over an annual £920,000 at the shop and has a 7mlpa fuel volume, is open 24-hours, with the Bakery 79 blocked off when out of operation.
Housed within the same store-within-a-store type format which Greggs has become known for in petrol stations, the unit had a continual flow of mid morning traffic, often with a queue three people deep. Most customers were contractors, but being June half-term week there were parents with children too.
Since the switch to Bakery 79, business had fallen by 10-20% to between £10,000 to £12,000 a week, but those who are still coming are spending similar amounts at £5 to £6 per customer. Also, PGG is addressing a similar reduction in sales across other sites which have made the switch, by developing a loyalty app.
Most of the Bakery 79 locations now also offer deliveries with the like of Uber Eats (more popular in the south), Just Eat (with a bigger uptake in the north) and Deliveroo. This has already worked with its Subway concessions, where at least 35% of sales come from deliveries, says PGG head of operations Ian Cawley.
Wastage, thanks to the Cybake food production software, is being kept to a respectable 12%, and profit margins similar to what PGG had previously achieved with Greggs are at 50-80% depending on the product.
But the beauty is that there is scope to reduce wastage to around 10%, and to improve margin, as the business adapts the range, says area manager for food to go Freya Cleary-Long, who met us at the Wrotham Heath forecourt.
“Initial sales are actually better than we imagined,” she says. ”You have to remember that we have taken away a giant brand and replaced it with one that nobody had heard of before.” Much of the fallout, she believes, would have come from customers signed up to the Greggs loyalty app purchasing elsewhere.
At first sight the range does not look dissimilar to Greggs, with multi-packs accounting for 60% of turnover, and pastries and sweet treats the lynchpin of sales.
It has a breakfast product similar to the Greggs’ sausage bacon melt, and its sausage rolls are eight inches instead of six, retailing at £1.79 for a single, or four for £4.99. But it has unique products including a breakfast pot of a sausage, bacon, omelette, baked beans, and mini hash browns. It stocks the more luxurious Dunkin’ donuts and Planet Donuts, with a Jammy D Donut at £3.50, and there are poke bowls and wraps in the line-up.
The range is being adapted to introduce some of the best-sellers from when the store had the previous ubiquitous blue liveried brand. This includes the likely addition of a sugar and jam donut, and an extended range of pastry bakes. And this summer iced coffee, and fruit coolers, freshly made with an onsite ice cube machine have been added.
Current best-sellers are the sausage roll, bacon bap, ham & cheese baguette, bacon & cheese wrap, steak bake, a regular latte, a Biscoff and a Kinder donut, and milk chocolate cookies.
And hot food, available from 11am to 5pm, includes a southern fried chicken baguette, sidewinders (a potato wedge substitute), and southern fried chicken goujons.
“We are really happy with how the range is going down,” enthuses Cleary-Long.
