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Non meat-eaters rejoice – vegan sausage rolls are taking over the world

When I was at school, copying someone was known as “dogging” them. It means something different now. I believe “scraping” is the verb teenagers favour these days. And on behalf of vegetarians everywhere, I would like to celebrate the scraping of Greggs and their vegan sausage rolls. How I love those magical little stumps of meat-free stodge. One measly pound’s worth of sheer joy.

Greggs is obviously shifting them, because the scraping has now started in earnest. One morning last week I stopped at a BP garage heading north out of Liverpool. In the Wild Bean Cafe, lying there nonchalantly as you like, was a vegan sausage roll. Slightly flakier of pastry than the Greggs original, and possibly with slightly more filling, it did the job. But at roughly four times the price of a Greggs VSR, I’m not sure it represented great value.

And later that day there was more VSR action, this time at The Pasty Shop at Manchester Piccadilly. Again, it was half-decent, but at a reassuringly high price that would buy you five Greggs VSRs. Not sure if many people could eat five Greggs at one sitting (I could, easily), but I suppose you could freeze them for a rainy day.

If you want to spend that much on a really top-drawer VSR, may I warmly recommend AMT Coffee’s offering. The pastry is so flaky you will leave a trail as you walk away; a trail that you can then follow back to buy another one. Oddly though, only some AMTs have them. If you enquire at an AMT that doesn’t, they look at you as if you have asked for a piece of moon rock. And you are met with similar bafflement at the West Cornwall Pasty Company, Delice de France and others. Their time will come, because scraping is surely the sincerest form of flattery.