Angry meat eaters on Twitter have vowed to boycott Greggs following the launch of its vegan sausage roll.
The arrival of the vegan sausage roll, which went on sale today in 950 Greggs, was announced yesterday.
It became a trending topic on Twitter, fiercely diving opinions. Multiple omnivores demanded Greggs remove the offending item from the menu – others took it a step further and pledged to boycott the chain entirely.
Vegan sausage roll
Greggs revealed that it was launching the roll in response to consumer demand. “Like many food retailers we have seen increasing demand for vegetarian and vegan products,” Roger Whiteside, Chief Executive at Greggs, said in a statement sent to Plant Based News.
“We have been trying to develop a vegan version of our famous sausage roll for some time now. It has not been easy but our taste panel customers all love this one, so we have decided to launch it as our contribution to Veganuary.”
Vegan sausage roll launch video
Angry non-vegans
While the news was met with joy from many vegan consumers, not all meat eaters were as happy. “Utterly bewildered and dismayed,” one social media user tweeted. “Lost a loyal customer.”
Another pithy Tweet simply said: “F*ck the vegan sausage roll #BoycottGreggs.”
Other omnivores were more supportive. “As a meat eater I’ve just had one and it was lovely,” one tweeted. “And nice to know it’s lips and a*se free.”
Selling out
Despite the anger, the sausage roll has been selling out in some stores, with the Altrincham branch in Trafford displaying an empty shelf by 10.47 this morning.
Other Greggs fans took to Twitter to say their local branches had also run out of stock. “I went to four Greggs stores looking for a vegan sausage roll. Sold out in all of them,” one said.
A spokesman for Greggs told The Sun: “We’ve had an overwhelming response from customers wanting to try our new Vegan Sausage Roll. We’re working hard behind the scenes to get more product to shops as soon as we can.”