A HIGH street bakery chain you’ve probably never heard of has been describes as “better than Greggs” and it’s pretty cheap too.
Birds Bakery sells a variety of sweet and savoury treats including sausage rolls, cakes, bacon rolls and freshly baked bread.
Birds Bakery sells a variety of sweet and savoury treatsTrip Advisor
The chain was founded by three brothers in 1919 and has around 60 stores across the East Midlands.
You can find shops in cities and towns like Nottingham, Derby, Mansfield, Matlock and Loughborough.
You can find the full list of locations on the Birds Bakery website.
Bakery chains are proving massively popular at the moment, with the likes of Greggs announcing huge expansion plans.
Some social media users have taken to Reddit to answer the question: “Which is better, Birds or Greggs?”
In response, one Reddit user said: “Birds for sure. Their caramel doughnuts are amazing.”
While another said: “Birds hands down .. especially the sandwiches and the cakes.”
And a third added: “Birds is way better. Much better quality for sure.”
Birds social media platforms regularly highlight some of its best deals and offerings.
These include elephant’s feet, sourdough bread, chocolate brownies and tarts.
We had a look through the chain’s website and picked out some items with low prices.
For examples, Birds sells jam and lemon tarts for 52p, while you can get a box of caramel doughnuts for £4, according to its Facebook page.
The bakery also sells a farmhouse loaf for £1.10 and a six pack of sausage rolls for £3.75.
We also price-checked some of the items against Greggs to see how the prices compared.
A Greggs sausage roll is priced at £1.45, where as an extra large single sausage roll at Birds costs around £1.70 on JustEat, but it may be cheaper if you visit a branch directly.
A ham and cheese baguette in Greggs is priced at £4 whereas you can get a ham and cheese roll for £3.70 at Birds.
It is a challenging time for many high-street shops at the moment and bakeries are no exception.
Just recently bakery chain Le Pain Quotidien closed all but one of its stores resulting in the loss of 250 jobs, after it fell into administration.
And Scarborough-based bakery Cooplands, which is the largest family-owned bakery chain in the UK, closed nine of its bakeries without warning.
Meanwhile, Greggs announced earlier this month that it had applied to keep two of its locations open 24-hours a day.
Greggs has already extended opening hours for around 500 shops to 8pm or later.
And earlier in the year it revealed plans to open a 24-hour drive-thru service.
Other ways to save money on your shopping
It is always worth looking for little-known outlets and ways you can save some money on your shopping.
Too Good to Go is an app that allows you to rescue end-of-day food from many popular cafes, restaurants, shops and supermarkets that would otherwise go in the bin.
All you need to do is download and set your location on the Too Good To Go app and you can choose from nearby stores listing their unsold food at a reduced price.
Similar to Too Good To Go, you can search for nearby food to pick up based on your location through the Karma app.
You can then purchase meals at discounted prices.
However, unlike Too Good To Go, Karma will tell you what food you are getting, so there is even less chance of it going to waste.
No Waste is an excellent way to get organised, as you can scan your food and list it by expiry date, name or category.
It makes it easier to see what you are running out of, so you don’t double up on items in your next shop.
Lists can be shared with family so you can give away unwanted food plus you can track how much you are wasting by deleting items you have eaten or that have expired.
Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing [email protected].
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