A man was allegedly left furious after Greggs tried to charge him extra money to heat his food.
The anonymous foodie opened up about the incident on Reddit where he admitted he refused to pay the fee. He couldn’t believe he was asked for more cash to be able to tuck into a hot meal.
In the post, he wrote: “Since when did it cost £1.60 to heat a sandwich in Greggs? Dude I tried to buy a NORMAL baguette as a sandwich deal for £3.75, comes with a drink, and all I wanted was to heat up my baguette. It would have cost me £5.35 to do this. Why?”
The situation left him puzzled as he didn’t want to cough up the extra cash. Many Greggs fans soon chimed in to offer their advice though.
One person replied, saying: “VAT. Serving hot food automatically adds 20% tax. That’s not Greggs fault. That’s HMRC.”
Another wrote: “£3.75 for the sandwich and drink meal deal, since the sandwich is now a hot sandwich, the deal no longer applies, hence the hike in price, if OP got wedges with it, it’ll have gone down to £4.95. It’s just the hot food tax and VAT thanks to HRMC like another comment said. It’s the reason our sausage rolls and other pastries aren’t kept to heat otherwise a sausage roll would be £1.50+ instead of £1.25.”
A third commented: “And is literally nicknamed the ‘pasty tax’ due to it mainly affecting pasties. Most other hot food sold for takeaway is kept under a heat lamp and designed to be hot takeaway food, whereas if you get a hot Greggs pasty that’s just a nice byproduct of getting it once it’s just come out the oven.”
Meanwhile, a fourth claimed: “They must have clamped down on this though. I always used to get hot sandwiches in the meal deal, but for the last couple of years it’s damn near impossible. There’s still a few staff who will just heat it up anyway. I usually just ask after I’ve paid it I can have it heated up now. I actually used to work at Greggs years ago, and it certainly was never mentioned back then.”
Greggs has been asked to comment on the price increase for hot food. For those keen to know more about it, there is a little guidance on the website though.
In the frequently asked questions section, it explains: “If the sausage rolls and bakes were kept hot after they had been baked, then they would be subject to VAT and the customer would have to be charged a higher price, in the same way that we charge VAT on our hot sandwiches which are kept in a heated cabinet and are subject to VAT.”
There’s also an additional fee if you opt to eat-in, as opposed to taking your meal away. This is also linked to VAT, and the money gets handed over to HMRC.
The website states: “We also charge a little extra in our café shops as we provide additional services. We’ll always let you know by showing both the eat in and takeaway prices on our shelf tickets.”
