Greggs: Cleaning 2,200+ Stores
How Soluble sachet technology helped the UK’s biggest bakery chain cut plastic, reduce waste collections, and clean smarter across 2,200+ shops.
The Challenges
Greggs is the UK’s most successful high street bakery chain, with over 2,200 retail outlets, that’s more locations than McDonald’s UK.
In 2014, Ally Stephenson, Head of Purchasing at Greggs, came to soluCLEAN with a clear brief: find a smarter way to deliver cleaning chemicals across every shop. The goal was to reduce the volume of water in product formulations, cut down on packaging waste, and make the day-to-day easier for shop staff, without compromising food hygiene or allergen control standards.
The Solution
soluCLEAN’s technology was the perfect fit. We supplied a range of single-dose, soluble sachet products covering most cleaning and disinfection tasks carried out in Greggs shops every day. Each sachet simply dissolves in water, no heavy containers to store or ship, and no complicated dilution guesswork. Products are delivered in compact, resealable pouches that are light to transport and easy to replenish.
Following extensive trials across 30+ retail outlets, the new system went live on 1st June 2017, a full, simultaneous rollout across the entire estate with no additional training or site visits needed.
The Results
- 2,200+ shops switched to soluble sachet cleaning products
- 3+ tonnes of plastic prevented from entering the waste stream every year
- 6+ tonnes projected annual plastic saving with full product rollout
- 66% reduction in bin collections, from 3 times a week to just once
- First in bin collections, from 3 times a week to just once
Customer Testimonial
“As a fast moving consumer-led business with over 1700 shops, Greggs is always looking for
ways to make life easier for our staff so that they can spend more time delivering excellent
service to our customers. Greggs also takes it Social Responsibilities seriously and as part of
this, continually looks for opportunities to reduce our impact on the environment.
In 2014 we approached our incumbent chemical supplier, Christens Food Hygiene, and challenged
them to provide us with a way of delivering cleaning products into our shops, in a simple,
user friendly way that takes out the need to store and ship heavy products around the
country, without compromising the required high standards of microbiological and allergen
control. Christeyns Food Hygiene embraced this challenge and worked closely with us to
find a solution that we are delighted with, soluCLEAN: soluble, single dose sachets in small,
light to transport packs which are simple and easy to use and safe for our staff.
There are multiple benefits to these including ease of use as the single dose sachet format is simply
topped up with water, they are safe to handle requiring no PPE and environmentally friendly.
They are also transported in compact pouches which are resealable & easy to store and
replenish. Following extensive trials across three regions we are proud to be the first national
food retailer to adopt this technology across our entire retail estate.
The response from our Retail colleagues has been excellent with quick adoption, and high praise for this innovative solution. We are pleased to support Christens Food Hygiene’s application for “Product of the Year” at the 2017 SOFHT awards.”