How do you piss off a food snob?

By someone called John Ferguson

You show them up for the frauds they are.

Let me introduce you to Greggs.

This is a High Street bakery in the UK. Its stores are ubiquitous, with most towns and cities having several. The food (sausage rolls, pasties, pies, etc.) is relatively cheap. In British society, Gregg's is associated with the working class and the food essentially 'peasant food' . A food snob wouldn't be seen dead in it.

Greggs have a clever marketing department and have launched some pretty funny campaigns. A few years ago, they decided to tackle the food snobbery head on.

Greggs rented a stall at a high-brow, gourmet food festival under the name “Gregory & Gregory”. They branded their stall with artisan materials and posh livery. The food was presented fancily… but as you can probably guess… it was the food from their stores.

Cue a bunch of food snobs sampling the wares of this small, posh-looking artisan bakery, and waxing lyrical about the flavours and the quality. When they'd extracted enough platitudes from these supposed food connoisseurs, they switched the sign to reveal that the people had been eating GREGGS!

The look of embarrassment and shame on some of their faces was joyous.

What Greggs expertly laid bare was that food snobbery is really about context. The flavours and quality of the food itself is irrelevant. What matters is the cost, the presentation, the social positioning, the sense of feeling that you're 'above' the riff-raff, etc. Essentially… the fluff.

Lots and lots of comments mentioning Payless shoes in the US who apparently did something similar by pretending to be a high-end shoe brand. Showing up fashion snobs rather than foodies, but clearly tapping in to the same psychology tricks.