children in dark blue uniforms celebrate with joe swash at their breakfast club

Greggs Foundation opens its 1000th Breakfast Club

29 days ago
5 min read

25 years of supporting school children 

We are delighted to announce that we have opened our 1000th school Breakfast Club in the UK, meaning we are now supporting over 75,000 children to start every day with a full tummy. That’s 14.6 million meals a year. 

Reaching our target of opening 1000 Breakfast Clubs is made even more special given that 2024 is also the 25th anniversary of the programme.  Two milestones in one year, and one we couldn’t have achieved without the incredible support of our partners, Greggs colleagues and Greggs customers.   

a man in a beige shirt shares an orange slice with a young pupil at a breakfast club
3 young pupils play jenga with actor joe swash while eating breakfast

Celebrating our 1,000th Breakfast Club 

It’s not every day you hit a milestone like this. 

To celebrate, popular TV personality and family chef, Joe Swash, partnered with the team from Greggs to surprise children at Vauxhall Primary School to bring a fun twist to their daily Breakfast Club.   

Commenting on his visit and his support of the Greggs Foundation’s work, Joe Swash said: “Having kids myself of varying ages, I see firsthand how important it is for young people to get a good start to their day and is something I am hugely passionate about. Visiting the Greggs Foundation Breakfast Club at Vauxhall Primary School has been an absolute privilege, and it was amazing to see such a positive and fun environment for the pupils to enjoy before they headed into lessons, all with their tummies full.” 

How it all works 

The Greggs Foundation offers grant funding to primary schools to buy the healthy food schools know their kids would love most. Greggs shops also team up with local clubs to donate loaves of bread.  Over half a million loaves of bread from Greggs are donated to our network of schools every year! 

But it’s not just about food.  Breakfast Clubs are a chance for children to regulate before the school day begins, play with friends, and ensure they get in school on time, and ready to learn.  They can also support working parents with safe and secure wraparound care in the mornings.   

Hardship Support  

We know our Breakfast Club network has a positive impact on children and families throughout the UK, but there are additional benefits to being one of our schools.  The Greggs Foundation offer Breakfast Club schools in our network access to a hardship fund which supports those in financial crisis with food, clothing and energy vouchers, as well as essential home appliances. 

What Next? 

As we celebrate reaching this important milestone, we have been looking ahead to how we can add even greater value to our school network in the future.  The Government's promise to support state-funded Breakfast Clubs recognises the positive impact our programme has had over the past 25 years, but there is still more to be done to support families. We have been consulting with our school network to look at ways we can add more value to children and families and we will be developing our support for schools across even more of the school day through after-school clubs and holiday clubs.  We’ll have more details on this soon.   

Thank you! 

Once again, we would like to say thank you to all of our supporters for making 1000 Breakfast Clubs a reality.  Without your help, we could never have grown the programme to have the incredible impact it has had over the past 25 years for thousands of primary school children.