This year was just two days old when Greggs, the largest bakery chain in the United Kingdom, announced on Twitter that it would finally release a vegan version of its beloved sausage rolls. The accompanying video—30 seconds of two pastry-wrapped rolls floating in what we assume was supposed to be space—was watched more than 5 million times, and over-eager customers started lining up outside their local Greggs’ hoping to swoop one before they inevitably sold out.
According to The Guardian, the vegan rolls have since become one of Greggs top five best-selling items, and they’ve been credited with boosting its profits more than 50% for the first half of the year. The fact that you can get Quorn cosplaying as sausage meat is probably why vegans like Sharleen Ndungu feel comfortable going into one of the chain’s 1,900-plus stores.
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But Ndugo says that she’s never returning to Greggs, not after being “traumatized for life” by a mixup with her order. Last week, she stopped into a store in Canterbury, England for two vegan rolls, but was mistakenly given the OG sausage versions. She said that she started having heart palpitations almost immediately after taking a bite, and she knew that she’d been served meat by mistake.
“I’m carrying on eating and my heart starts beating like madness,” she said in a now-deleted video. “And then my stomach started turning upside down, I was like, ‘Whoa, what’s going on, this only happens when I consume meat’ […] My body is poisoned for life now, you know.”
Ndugo, who has been vegan for two years, said that she went back to the store and told a Greggs manager what had happened. She was offered a full refund for the rolls, which she turned down. She called the company’s customer service line, and a rep said she could have a £30 ($36) coupon, but she declined that as well.
“I was asking for a public apology to make people aware that they should watch out for things like this,” she said, according to KentOnline. “People can be allergic to pork and potentially die from such a stupid mistake. It’s my choice not to consume meat because it causes cancer. That choice has been taken away from me.”
A manager at the Canterbury store involved said that Ndugo “definitely” received an apology, and confirmed that she’d been offered a refund. And a spokesperson for the company told the news outlet that its corporate office had also apologized, and that it would be investigating to prevent a repeat roll-swap from happening to someone else.
On Tuesday, Greggs confirmed that it was stockpiling pork and some “light equipment” so that it will be able to continue serving sausage rolls, in the event that Brexit ever actually happens. “We are preparing for the potential impact of the UK’s departure from the European Union by building stocks of key ingredients,” the company told the BBC.
Yeah, it might not be a bad idea to start putting some Quorn aside, too.
