--- title: "Britain’s cheap and cheerful chains should be taking on the world" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/293842803.md" description: "British value chains like JD Wetherspoon and Greggs face domestic struggles due to high taxes, weak consumer spending, and rising costs. Despite these challenges, the article argues they should pursue aggressive global expansion into markets like the US, Canada, Australia, and Asia. While initial overseas steps have been taken, the author urges the City to support such international growth strategies rather than remaining timid." datetime: "2026-07-26T10:04:50.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/293842803.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/293842803.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/293842803.md) generator: "portal-rs" --- # Britain’s cheap and cheerful chains should be taking on the world Even with the World Cup, JD Wetherspoon is struggling, while with the hot weather, we are not eating as many sausage rolls from Greggs as we used to. What might be termed Britain’s value champions – companies that have perfected a low-cost, high-volume way of doing business – have found the domestic market a tough slog this year. Yet there is a huge opportunity to turn those brands into a global success and the City should stop being so timid about overseas expansion and start backing them. It is a measure of how dire the outlook for the British economy has become that even the likes of Spoons are starting to feel the pressure. This week, the pub chain issued its fourth profit warning of the year, with Sir Tim Martin, the chairman, admitting its performance was “likely to be below market expectations”. It is struggling with all the extra taxes that the Labour Government has imposed on the industry and while the modest reduction in business rates will help at the margin, it won’t make a great deal of difference. The average consumer is so pressed for spare cash that even a £2 pint and a £4.99 full English breakfast is too much of a stretch for many of its loyal customers. We will have to see whether Andy Burnham’s mission to deliver “good growth in every postcode” can start to change that (readers may not be surprised to learn that I am pretty sceptical myself). But until the real wages start to grow more strongly, it is hard to see it happening. Likewise, Greggs is hardly the star performer that it once was. The cheap and cheerful baker of sausage rolls and hot pastries had expanded at breakneck speed across the country but in October last year, it warned of slowing sales and rising costs from all the extra taxes it had to pay and it scaled back its plans for new store openings. In March, it blamed “challenging conditions” for a 17pc fall in pre-tax profits. Just like Spoons, it says a lot about the state of the nation that a £1.35 sausage roll is more than many people can now afford. It would be easy to be pessimistic about the value champions. But there is a big, wide world out there. Sure, there is never going to be a Spoons in downtown Riyadh, nor is Greggs ever likely to muscle out the local boulangerie in a village in Provence. But that does not mean there isn’t plenty of space for expanding into markets where growth is a lot stronger and where real incomes are still growing at a more robust rate. The United States, Canada and Australia are all Anglocentric markets with a healthy appetite for cheap drinks and snacks. Germany is not the wealthy economy it once was but there are still plenty of people who like a beer and a bratwurst roll might well prove surprisingly popular. The Japanese love anything that they see as British and so increasingly does much of China. The list goes on. There are perhaps a dozen or more countries where either brand could plausibly replicate their British success. To some degree, it is already happening. Greggs said in May that it was opening its first branch outside Britain in more than two decades, with a shop at Tenerife South Airport. In a concession to local tastes, you will be able to get a Spanish omelette breakfast roll (I can’t wait) alongside all the usual offerings familiar back at home. Wetherspoon’s opened its first branch outside Britain in December last year, the Castell de Santa Barbara, located in Alicante airport, with garlic prawns on the menu, for anyone who wants a cheap pint before getting the flight home. But why not accelerate that? Sure, it will take a lot of investment and capital will have to be committed over the long term. Bakeries and pubs take money to set up, staff have to be trained, supply chains have to be put in place and the market has to be prepared. But the City used to back British companies that wanted to take on the world. Tesco tried to conquer Eastern and Central Europe before problems back home forced it to retreat. In the 1980s, Body Shop – when it was still a new retail concept – expanded around the world. So did Topshop in its fast fashion heyday. Rewind two decades and the City was perfectly happy to back entrepreneurs and brands that had a concept that worked as they moved into other countries. That is, sadly, no longer true. A company that said it wanted to open 1,000 branches across the United States, Asia or Continental Europe would probably see its share price collapse, tough questions for the board and the chief executive ousted before they even had a chance to get started. The ambition has gone. Alongside all its other issues, that is surely one core reason why the London stock market has been in steep decline and why the performance of the British economy has been so dismal. No one is trying to take on the world any more. The important point is surely this. Chains such as Spoons and Greggs have perfected a low-cost, slim-margin, high-volume model. That might sound simple – and in some ways it is – but as anyone who has ever tried it will tell you, it is very hard to make it work every day across hundreds or indeed thousands of branches. Unfortunately, the British economy is likely to remain stuck in its zero-growth rut for years to come. The value chains should be taking a winning formula and rolling it out across the world – and the City should back them with the capital, the patience and the perseverance they will need to make a success of it. ### Related Stocks - [GRG.UK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/GRG.UK.md) - [JDW.UK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/JDW.UK.md) - [TSCO.UK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/TSCO.UK.md) - [TSCDY.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/TSCDY.US.md) ## Related News & Research - [Greggs Finance Director Exercises Performance Share Options at Nil Cost](https://longbridge.com/en/news/295433921.md) - [Wetherspoons bans customers from using phones on loudspeaker](https://longbridge.com/en/news/296195331.md) - [Avaloq's Dubai Push Takes Shape](https://longbridge.com/en/news/297296967.md) - [Saudi’s Alfanar Group backs Indian wind turbine maker’s global expansion](https://longbridge.com/en/news/297117542.md) - [Redstone launches EUR 10 million North Karelia Growth Fund II for early-stage startups, Business Joensuu says](https://longbridge.com/en/news/297465528.md) --- > **Disclaimer: This article is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice.**