Tesco Debuts Vegan Sausage Roll to Rival Greggs

British supermarket chain Tesco recently launched a ready-to-eat vegan sausage roll in the in-store bakery of 624 locations across the United Kingdom. The launch follows competing convenience chain Greggs, which debuted its own vegan sausage roll in January. Tesco’s new item—which is 25 percent cheaper than Greggs’—features puff pastry filled with soy-based Lincolnshire-style sausage seasoned with sage and onion. In comparison, Greggs’ roll features puff pastry surrounding a Quorn-based vegan sausage. Greggs’ menu item launch attracted media attention and sparked debate online when television personality Piers Morgan—a harsh critic of veganism—attacked the new option on Twitter. The media attention that followed sent customers rushing to try the new vegan option, causing many Greggs locations to sell out of the vegan sausage roll. The chain reported a 9.6-percent boost in sales in the first six weeks after launching the now popular vegan option prompting it to expand the availability of the roll in February to all of its 1950 stores across the UK.