Since the wildly popular vegan sausage roll was launched a year ago, Greggs has seen company sales rocketing up by 13.4 per cent. So it comes as no surprise that they've followed up that success with another meatless product: a vegan 'steak' bake.
The new treat was released on 2 January, but getting your hands on one in Edinburgh has proven tricky, with people reporting that they were sold out in each branch they visited. One person even visited three different cities in a bid to find one, and failed.
So you can imagine just how thrilled we were to find one in the Newkirkgate branch of Greggs in Leith, possibly not the first place you'd think to look. It was the last one in the shop, nestled beside a small pile of vegan sausage rolls.
Greggs' vegan steak bake is made using the meat substitute Quorn, which is in turn wrapped in 96 layers of light, crisp puff pastry, mixed with diced onions and gravy to form a tasty filling.
Once we got our savoury prize back to the Edinburgh Live office, we got three volunteers to try it. Two were meat eaters, one was a vegetarian: and everyone (kind of) liked it.
One meat eater called it: "sufficiently savoury" and said that the flavour was the same as a regular steak bake, but the texture of the mixture inside was a bit different. However, he said it wouldn't put him off eating one in future and gave the vegan bake 3/5.
The second meat eater rated it 4/5, saying it was pretty much indistinguishable from the non-vegan steak bake, saying: "I would have no qualms ordering that over the regular one."
The pastry did seem to have a bit less filling than the meat version though - or maybe the mixture inside was just a little more dry. It seemed a bit flat and didn't ooze satisfyingly when you cut it open, or drip gravy down your clean shirt. That could possibly be listed as an upside, though.
The vegetarian staff member said: "It's really nice, and to be honest I'm happy to have a change from the dozens of vegan sausage rolls I've been getting through each week since they brought them out a year ago.
"I can't compare it to a regular steak bake, but I think I've definitely found my new addiction. 5/5."
To avoid disappointment, shoppers can check if it's being sold in their local branch using the Greggs store finder here .
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