As someone who doesn’t work in marketing, I’ve never spent a significant amount of time dwelling on the concepts of “brand identity”, “collabs” or “shared vision”. But if I’d had to wager who might be an appropriate spokesperson for no-frills – famed for its beloved beige buffet of greasy sausage rolls and steak bakes – I’m not sure would have immediately sprung to mind. Yet these two seemingly opposing forces have come together in the most public display of affection possible: the former is the .
They have, traditionally, represented very different sides of British culinary life. Writer and presenter Nigella, with her 1950s pin-up aesthetic, decadent recipes involving quantities of double cream that would haunt a cardiologist’s nightmares, and plummy tones befitting a BBC radio play, is the epitome of middle-class dining. She’s always popping into her enviable walk-in pantry to fetch some little-known ingredient; she’s always inviting chums round to her exquisite west London home to indulge in a perfectly thrown-together feasting platter.
Not to mention her properly upper-crust heritage (she’s the daughter of the heiress to the J Lyons and Co fortune and a baron/former chancellor of the Exchequer). And then there’s Greggs, a distinctly lower-crust cultural touchstone if ever there was one. The high street bakery’s humble origin story began 85 years ago, when John Gregg started delivering eggs and yeast by bike around Newcastle before openi.