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Greggs boss Roger Whiteside has revealed he is tackling a new challenge – trying a vegan diet.

The chief executive of the Newcastle bakery recently told how teams are working on developing vegan versions of its bestselling products, to join its super popular vegan sausage roll, which has become one of its top five sellers.

And he’ll be extremely keen to get them on the market once the recipes are perfected – because he switched to a vegan diet three weeks ago.

Mr Whiteside, who has been in the top job at the Quorum Business Park headquartered firm for seven years, said he took the decision to make changes in his diet after watching a Netflix documentary called The Gamechangers.

He said: “If you’d asked me three weeks ago which roll I preferred I would have said the original sausage roll, but I’m now attempting to live on a vegan diet.

“I was encouraged to watch a film on Netflix called The Gamechangers – I watched it and thought this is interesting.

“Obviously there are arguments based around animal welfare and the environment, but this was all about the health benefits, and I thought I should give it a go.

“Avoiding meat is easy. The problem is avoiding dairy, avoiding milk and cheese is almost impossible. It would be okay if I had time to cook, but I don’t, so I have to have things that are quick and easy.”

Mr Whiteside said he’s currently making his way through Greggs’ vegan range, which the firm is looking to expand, potentially adding vegan versions of other best-sellers like its steak bake.

“We’ve got the award-winning vegan wrap which I have quite frequently nd the vegan sausage roll which I’ll have about once a week, and now we have the sweet choice with the vegan sweet mince pie.”

Mr Whiteside spoke of his new plant-based food regime as he was crowned this year’s North East Business Executive of the Year at the awards event organised by our sister publisher, The Journal, held at The Boiler Shop in Newcastle.

(Image: Newcastle Chronicle)

Since taking on the CEO role he has made Greggs one of the biggest names in its sector of food-on-the-go, but he said he there is still a lot of work to do.

He said: “It’s been seven years since I took over as CEO and we’ve spent all that time transforming the business in all sorts of ways, obviously refocusing the business away from traditional bakery to the growing food-on-the-go market. But really all that time has been spent on getting to the start line and what comes next for Greggs is to build on that platform to become truly multi-channel in a digital age.

“And there’s so much opportunity to do that, serving customers at all times of the day, everywhere, in every way they want when they’re looking for food and drink away from home.

“We’ve already started investing in these new channels – delivery of food, click and collect food, drive-thru lanes, food to order – all of those things are there to be developed by Greggs now.

“As well as being market-leaders in bakery, which you’d expect with our heritage, we’re becoming market leaders in areas you’d never have thought of. So we’re already well on the way.”

“Put all those things together and what lies ahead is even more exciting than what we’ve achieved so far. There’s lots to look forward to.”