Greggs Sausage Roll Index - here's how long you have to work in Sunderland to buy one

The humble pastry is the subject of a nationwide cost of living index showing how long is required to earn enough to buy one in different parts of the country.

Website InvestingReviews.co.uk commissioned economist John Hawksworth to carry out a study of 100 cities and towns across Great Britain, comparing Greggs prices to the Office of National Statistics’ local median hourly pay estimates.

It found Lichfield in Staffordshire is the place people must work the longest – four minutes and 54 seconds – to afford their favourite treat.

Sunderland clocks in at 88th in the list. Mackems can expect to work four minutes and 32 seconds before digging in.

Unsurprisingly, the fastest-earned sausage rolls were mostly in the South East with London, Oxford, Slough, and Guildford in the top five.

Newcastle — where the late John Gregg opened his first shop in 1951 — managed only 30th place. Geordies have to work an estimated three minutes and 46 seconds to scrape together the necessary funds.

The Greggs Sausage Roll Index may seem like a joke but John Hawksworth said it exposed the regional inequalities that still exist despite the government’s flagship levelling-up agenda: “In part the analysis is a bit of fun, with the sausage roll standing in for the Big Mac as a standardised product to compare purchasing power across different places,” he said.

"But it does also make the serious point that there are very large variations in income levels across our towns and cities.

“These local earnings gaps are driven by variations in productivity across places that reflect deep-seated disparities in education, opportunity and infrastructure across the country.

“Narrowing these income gaps remains one of the most important economic challenges facing this and future governments.”

Greggs has warned customers they may have to work even harder for their sausage roll in the future, with a raft of price hikes expected later in the year.

InvestingReviews.co.uk CEO Simon Jones added: “Amid all the government’s talk of levelling up, a great divide still exists across Great Britain today with Greggs customers in some parts typically having to work 65% longer than Londoners just to be able to afford a sausage roll.”