VS Series
Greggs v Gail's
The sausage roll against the sourdough loaf
Greggs leads on turnover, pre-tax profit and net assets; Gail's on profit margin and growth. Greggs is the biggest by turnover at £2,151m, against £220m at Gail's. Gail's keeps more of every £100 it takes, £13.41 as pre-tax profit.
The year ends are up to 10 months apart, so this compares each company's most recent filing rather than the same twelve months. Greggs files group accounts that include subsidiaries; Gail's files for a single company, which flatters the group on size.
Accounts compared: Greggs to Dec 2025 · Gail's to Feb 2025
Who they are
Greggs
Greggs PLC · 00502851Greggs is a bakery chain selling sausage rolls, bakes, sandwiches and coffee to eat on the go.In brief: bakery and food-to-go retailer · makes its own products · company-run and franchised shops · listedFull profile →Gail's
Gails Limited · 06055393Gail's is a bakery chain selling fresh bread, pastries, cakes and speciality coffee from its own neighbourhood bakeries.In brief: bakery chain · bread, pastries and coffee · own bakeriesFull profile →The Numbers
The leader on each measure is marked. Movements are against each company's own prior year. Pre-tax profit is filed except where marked (est.).
Category winners
How they differ
How do Greggs and Gail's make their money differently?
Greggs makes its own food and sells it cheaply through 2,739 shops, franchise partners and delivery. Gail's runs neighbourhood bakeries and grows by opening more of them: 22 in its latest year, lifting sales 23%.
This panel reads: Greggs, Accounts to December 2025; Gail's, Accounts to February 2025. The numbers above use each company's latest figures on Spark Intel, which can be a different year.
How they make it
1 in 9staff work in production
Makes its own food in its own manufacturing centres and delivers it to the shops itself.
“which helps us to keep our prices as low as possible”
24 in 25staff are listed as retail
Pays for premium ingredients. The accounts don't say where it bakes, and list no production staff.
“to continue to pay premium prices for premium ingredients”
How they sell it
11.8%of revenue from franchise and grocery partners
Value prices through its own shops, over 600 franchised shops, grocery partners and delivery.
“at a strong discount compared to other food-to-go specialists”
In-storeis the only sales channel in its accounts
Its own neighbourhood bakeries: all revenue is from sales to customers in-store, in the UK.
“attractive neighbourhood bakeries with the highest levels of service at reasonable prices”
How they grow
121net new shops in 2025
New kinds of site: over half of 2025's openings were at forecourts, supermarkets, retail parks and hospitals. About a third of 2026's openings will be franchised.
“a network of 3,500 shops”
22bakeries opened in the year
New high-street bakeries. The directors name finding sites as a risk.
“Acquiring suitable locations for new retail bakeries is more challenging”
Where the money goes
£287.5mof capital spending in 2025
Supply capacity: new National Distribution Centres in Derby and Kettering.
“the peak year”
£15.0mof its £25.5m of new assets went on property
Fitting out bakeries. Funding comes from its parent group.
“funded by a combination of available cash balances, external bank loan funding and Preference shares”
Not disclosed
Over 600franchised shops: no exact count
The size of its franchised estate.
No countof bakeries at the year end
Audit-exempt subsidiary accounts: no bakery count, like-for-like sales, sales by channel or where it bakes.
Pages quoted: Greggs pp. 3, 16, 25, 58, 60, 145, 148; Gail's pp. 3, 6, 10, 13, 14, 17.
Gross margins and lease figures are not comparable: Greggs reports shop costs within distribution and selling costs and uses IFRS 16; Gail's does not define its cost of sales and uses FRS 102. The scorecard uses Greggs' accounts to December 2024; this panel uses its 2025 report.
Sources: Greggs plc, Annual Report and Accounts 2025; Gails Limited (06055393), accounts to 28 February 2025. Page numbers are the documents' own.
The Takeaway
- Gail's converts the most of its turnover. Of every £100, £13.41 reaches pre-tax profit, against £7.78 at Greggs.
- Greggs is the largest on the top line, £2,151m of turnover, 9.8x Gail's's £220m.
- Gail's is growing fastest, turnover +22.8% on its own prior year.
- Greggs is the biggest employer with 33,283 people; Gail's pays the most per head, an average staff cost of about £24,000.
- Greggs has the largest balance sheet, net assets of £625m.
Who keeps the most of every £100 of sales?
Gail's keeps the most: £13.41 of every £100 of turnover becomes pre-tax profit. Greggs keeps the least, £7.78.
Every profit figure here is the one the company filed.
The chart splits each company's turnover into £100: what goes on people, on interest and on everything else, and what is left as profit.
Out of every £100 of turnover
Each column is £100 of that company's own turnover, so companies of any size compare on one scale; the figures are pounds out of each £100, not millions. Companies run from the best margin to the worst. Payroll is staff costs, financing is interest paid, other running costs are everything else, and profit is pre-tax profit, filed or estimated as marked in the table. A loss is not an extra cost: it is the part of the costs that runs past the £100 line, marked with a red bracket. Hover over any segment for its figure.
Who is the biggest, and does the comparison hold?
By turnover the order is Greggs (£2,151m), Gail's (£220m).
By headcount, Greggs leads with 33,283 employees.
The comparison holds with the dates stated plainly: Greggs to Dec 2025, Gail's to Feb 2025. The bases differ: group accounts include the businesses a company owns, single-company accounts do not.
Turnover on the latest filing
Who is growing fastest?
Gail's grew fastest, turnover +22.8% on its own prior year, ahead of Greggs (+6.8%).
Turnover change on each company's own prior year
Who employs the most, who pays the most, and who brings in the most per head?
Greggs employs the most, 33,283 people, against 2,816 at Gail's.
Gail's has the highest average staff cost, about £24,000 a head; Greggs the lowest, about £23,000.
Gail's brings in the most turnover per employee, about £78,000, against £65,000 at Greggs. It says as much about the business model as the workforce: a marketplace or a wholesaler needs far fewer people per pound than a restaurant or a gym.
Who owns each one?
Ownership as recorded on the Companies House register of people with significant control, in the bands the register uses.
Owned by its shareholders
Listed on the London Stock Exchange, so no single controller appears on the register. 1 outstanding charge on the register.
Who owns Greggs →
Gails Limited · 06055393Held by Bread Limited
A company recorded as a person with significant control. 2 outstanding charges on the register.
Who owns Gail's →
What does the full ledger show?
| Measure | Greggs | Gail's |
|---|---|---|
| Registered name | GREGGS PLC | GAILS LIMITED |
| Company number | 00502851 | 06055393 |
| Incorporated | 1951 | 2007 |
| Accounts filed | 19 May 2026 | 9 December 2025 |
| Turnover, prior year | £2,014m | £179m |
| Pre-tax profit, prior year | £204m | £25m |
| Staff costs | £756m | £67m |
| Payroll share of turnover | 35.2% | 30.3% |
| Employees, prior year | 32,258 | 2,454 |
| Dividends paid | £70m | n/d |
| Charges outstanding | 1 | 2 |
A figure the filing does not disclose is shown as n/d; a zero in a filing is treated as not disclosed. Rounding: below £0.1m in thousands, £0.1m to £2m to one decimal place, above that to the nearest million.
Greggs v Gail's: common questions
How do Greggs and Gail's make their money differently?
Greggs is a value food-on-the-go chain that makes and delivers its own products to 2,739 shops, over 600 of them franchised, and in 2025 took 11.8% of its revenue from selling to franchise and grocery partners (Greggs AR, pp. 3, 145, 174). Gail's is a neighbourhood bakery chain whose accounts describe only in-store retail sales; its turnover grew 23% in the year to 28 February 2025, "largely attributable to the growth in the estate" of 22 new bakeries (Gail's accounts, pp. 3, 10). Staff costs took £35.16 of every £100 of Greggs' 2025 sales and £30.31 at Gail's (our arithmetic).
Who is the biggest of Greggs or Gail's?
Greggs, with turnover of £2,151m in the year to December 2025.
Which makes the most profit?
Greggs: £167m pre-tax in the year to December 2025.
Which employs the most people?
Greggs, with 33,283 employees in its latest accounts.
Greggs or Gail's: which is bigger?
Greggs, with turnover of £2,151m against £220m at Gail's on their latest filings. On margin, Gail's keeps more of each £100 as pre-tax profit. The full head to head is in the VS Series. Read the VS page →
Where do these figures come from?
Each company's latest accounts filed at Companies House. Each links to its full Spark Intel profile, which names the filing it comes from.
Deep dive: what story does Greggs's money tell? →
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