What do you consider the distinguishing marker of wealth in Britain today? Is it privately educating the kids? Is it the £60,000 Tesla parked out front with a black cable running to a gleaming box attached to the wall? Let me tell you what I think signifies real wealth today: it’s eating at Gail’s.
Because you can’t have failed to have notice the conspicuous unaffordability of Britain’s fastest rising bakery – the one that began life in London in 2005 and now has some 170 branches nationwide.
At Gail’s a box of five of their cookies costs £18. You can buy a kettle in Robert Dyas for that — and not a bad one either. And that’s the takeaway price. Their standard eat-in prices are even more vertiginous: consider the small-looking but mouth-watering salmon bagel – it’s three bites will cost you a weighty £8.95. Yes, it’s good, but one isn’t enough, and five pence short of nine quid is terrifyingly expensive for those of us who remember when a fiver was something in your pocket.
Meanwhile, yes, the signature Pastrami Rachel is hard to argue with, but at £9.30 it’s virtually the same price as a Sunday roast in your local pub ten years ago. Next, chuck in a coffee (priced around £3.20) and you’re already spending north of £12. But since most adults require something like 2000 calories to get through the day this will still leave you hungry for more. Fortunately, Gail’s has it – but at a price.
So, if you’re like me, you’ll reach for the 40g packet of ‘Two Farmers’ crisps – a snip at £1.65 – even though 40 grammes won’t touch the sides, and you’ll probably find yourself having a cake to follow. After all they don’t look half like worth eating. Sure enough, the maple and pecan scone is very good – it should be at £4.60 – but while the carrot looks excellent, I’ve never tried it because it’s £6.
And this is the Gail’s effect: before you know it, you’ve dropped the best part of £20 on a bun-lunch that lasts you ten minutes, maybe 12, before you’ve been guilted out of your wooden seat by the all people standing around waiting for one of the nicely sanded tables.
Perish the thought you could take your children to Gail’s — the bottled soft drinks are more expensive than the coffee – because a family of four would munch their way through £80 quicker than a hungry HS2 bat.
This is the Gail’s effect: before you know it, you’ve dropped the best part of £20 on a bun-lunch
And, what’s more, within 25 seconds – almost before the money has left your account and reached the server en route to Gail’s bank account – you’ll have scoffed the lot and just have a pile of expensive-looking white card and cellophane to show for it. Now before you discount £80 for not being worth what it used to be, don’t forget that it’s the same as the daily take-home pay of a worker on the National Living Wage, so it’s not nothing.
The fact is that Gail’s, as an old colleague of mine once observed about the private members’ club 5 Hertford Street, is like going to Switzerland. It’s basically Pret for bankers – and there’s nothing that those of us who aren’t bankers can do about it. We must accept it, save up and regard visits as an occasional rare treat. But the question arises, how come there are so many people queuing up for it, because there always seems to be a queue in Gail’s? They can’t all be bankers, can they?
Cast your eye down a typical high street, however, and you’ll likely see another lunchtime queue – at Greggs. The other staple of working Britain, of course, is the Tesco meal deal, where a sandwich, packet of crisps and a drink will cost you £3.85 if you have a ‘Clubcard’ or £4.25 if you’ve been careless enough leave it at home.
Together with the success of Gail’s, the rise of Greggs and the Tesco unhappy meal tells us something about the Britain we inhabit today, and specifically something about its Gini coefficient score or its measure of inequality. While Britain’s number is broadly unchanged since the 1990s – hovering around the early to mid-30s – it was 35 per cent in 2024 making us a little less equal than France, Germany or Canada for instance – when you factor in housing costs our number rises to 39 per cent. That gives a truer gauge of income inequality since we all need a roof over our heads and pushes us in the direction of the USA whose score is in the 40s.
Which makes me think. Back in the mid-19th century, Benjamin Disraeli famously talked of two nations – and he would go on to espouse the doctrine of one nation Conservatism. I think we now have to concede that we still have two nations – one identifying with Gail’s and the other which gazes up at the blue and yellow signage of a different establishment beginning with G. We have two Britains defined by baked goods. (‘Let them eat a stake bake,’ Marie Antoinette would say if she were here today.)
Well, perhaps. Alternatively, of course, the galling expense of Gail’s might just be a question of inflation catching us unawares. We all know that £100 is worth about £20 or £30 less than it did five years ago. I’m guessing that the people that set the prices Gail’s have just got with the programme quicker than some of the rest of us have.
One day I’ll take my children to Gail’s – when they’re old enough to properly appreciate it. I might even treat myself to the carrot cake. In the meantime, wonderful emporium of baked goods that it is, the simple cash-for-calorie economics don’t stack up for me. Much as I love the Pastrami Rachel or the little salmon bagel, I’m a citizen of Greggs Britain, even if I can’t drink the coffee.
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