Greggs Fries (Wedges) Review: The Southern Orange of Potatoes

You cannot talk about fast-food in the UK without mentioning Greggs. Trying out Greggs was one of the main reason for The Fries Blog team to travel to the UK, especially given that Greggs does not operate any stores outside of the country. Many of our readers may have never heard of Greggs, but it is a cultural icon and a daily staple in the UK, operating over 2,500 stores! Greggs defines fast-food in the UK.

Greggs in King's Cross Station in London.

Greggs is not your typical fast-food restaurant like McDonald's. They offer pastries, donuts, coffee, salads, and much more. Not all stores offer their Hot Food menu but it includes pizzas, chicken and yes, fries in the form of “potato wedges”. Officially they are called Southern Fried Potato Wedges but nevertheless they qualify as fries under our definition. So let’s see if Greggs, a local bakery / breakfast fast-food chain, can actually compete in a field it may not have been made for. Here is our review of Greggs Southern Fried Potato Wedges.

Texture (7/10)

The wedges have a lot of crisp, and some decent crunch too. The structure solid and takes the form of a true wedge. The pieces are literally a natural cut wedge from a short and round potato with the skin. Thus there isn't any flop. The inside is on the mushy side, but they are proper wedges afterall. Overall, this texture is pretty good. The only thing that Greggs needs to add here is a bit more crunch. We think perhaps if they were consumed fresh, literally out of the fryer, it may have been better.

Look at the golden bumpy crispy wedges with peels attached. And the innards are wholesome.

Flavor (5/10)

The wedges are lightly seasoned which gives a seriously orangish red color that is prominent. Given it is branded "southern", we expected a bit of a spicey kick with a Tex-Mex flavor profile. The wedges tasted like they had a slight spice to them, probably including garlic, paprika, and cayenne pepper. This gave them a rounded spicy garlic and pepper taste, not too strong but prominent, which accompanied pretty nicely with the crunch on the outside. The issue was with the salt levels. There was again absolutely minimal salt in the seasoning which made the flavor profile unbalanced and left us craving for finding a missing puzzle. This was the second fries in the UK where we feel that there is a genuine dearth of salt. Is this coincidence?

Shape (7/10)

The fries are wedges, and average sized, but the thing here is that they look like an orange. To achieve this, they use orange-sized round potatoes and natural cut thick wedges, exactly like orange slices. The danger here is that the exterior to interior ratio becomes lobsided towards the innards, which in turn tends to make the flavor bland. But Greggs has gone for the pure orange slice look and feel. The spices and seasoning on the fries add to the facade, giving them an orange color, which from far away literally looks like an orange! We don’t see wedge fries much, so it is always nice when we do. And these are proper!

The shape is exactly like a slice of orange! Perhaps more of a mandarin orange?

Presentation (6/10)

The presentation was interesting, as since Greggs is a bakery chain, the wedges were being kept at temperature and stored on a heat controlled shelf in the store. This was interesting as although the wedges were probably still made fresh, they must have been stored there for some time, so the wedges didn’t have the heat that that first bite of a fry always has. The wedges also came in an interesting container, sort of like a hotdog carton but with a transparent plastic covering, that had clear openings from the side. We believe this is because Greggs want customers to see the content yet also allow the heat and steam out. The container does not do a good job holding in the wedges, so they would spill out of carried at an angle. We scratched our heads on how to eat this, whether to stick our fingers from the gap of the plastic cover or to open up one end. There was definitely a lot of effort put into the presentation but we are still not sure whether it is functional and intuitive.

The wedges are served in a elongated carton with transparent plastic on top. We are still not sure how to eat these wedges properly.

Experience (7/10)

Greggs, being a bakery-first chain, does not seem to be preparing the food as the order comes in (like your traditional fast-food at McDonald's or Five Guys). Many of the items seem to be produced centrally and displayed for a grab and go experience like Dunkin Donuts. We were curious how they would handle the hot food and indeed, they stuck to the playbook. Yes, these hot food items may have been manufactured at large scale at a factory but the local store seems to be at least frying them before placing it on the shelf. Now, the fries were priced at just £1.80 per container, which we believe is a very good deal for what you get. The experience of getting the fries out of the heated shelf for fries was a definite first for us. It was interesting to be able to choose the pack of fries visually first. And yes, grab and go was extremely fast! And the food was actually quite warm so either they are continuously making it fresh and replenshing the shelf or the heated shelf with warm air spewed from the top is highly effective.

Even hot food is offered as grab and go. What about the fries though?

Even fries are offered as grab and go at Greggs!

Texture	7
Flavor	5
Shape	7
Presentation	6
Experience	7
Overall	6.4 / 10

Conclusion

Overall, the fries, along with having both a great exterior and a decent interior texture, combined with a nice paprika-garlic seasoning, was very well rounded, espeically given that it was sitting on a shelf for at least some amount of time. We still feel that the appropriate level of salt could have truly enhanced the flavor more and are wondering why we continuously find low sodium fries across the UK. The shape was unique, looking and being the size of an actual slice of orange, as well as its presentation in an inventive container. Greggs definitely beat our expectations in many ways and was absolutely a joy to review.

There are lots of items to choose from at Greggs