It’s the question on everybody’s lips from mid-morning until you can eventually leave your desk for your break: what shall I have for lunch today? I find that sandwiches get boring really fast and whilst I enjoy couscous and salads topped with chicken, tuna or prawns in the summer, in the autumn and winter I tend to want something warmer and more filling.

When working from home, I often throw a jacket potato in the microwave or put some tortellini in a pan on the hob – but when working from the office or out and about for the day, I tend to reach for a supermarket meal deal or a warm lunch from a bakery. National chain Greggs is perhaps the best-known bakery in the country, but I’m lucky to have several others on my doorstep, including independent bakeries and cafes in Swansea city centre and a few branches of locally-renowned Llanelli-based bakery Jenkins.

Earlier this week, I popped down to Jenkins bakery at Whitewalls in the city centre, right by Swansea Market, for my lunch and opted for a Cornish pasty and a bacon and cheese pastry – and I had almost the same thing from the Greggs bakery a stone’s throw away, at Swansea Bus Station, the following day. Both lunches were tasty, filling and good-value – but ultimately one was far better than the other.

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Jenkins Bakery was established in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire in 1921 as a local, independent family-run business. Business-owner David and his wife Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ Jenkins opened their first shop in New Dock Road in the town – and Lizzie soon became famous locally for her excellent cooking, with people travelling from across the town for her freshly-baked goods.

Of course, the Great Depression, Second World War and the post-war recession years brought some challenges to the business but ultimately David and Lizzie kept pushing through and building on their offerings to improve and expand their bakery. The business has now been passed down to the third generation, Russell and David Jenkins, who are said to hold the “same methods and values” as their grandparents - and there are now just over 25 Jenkins Bakery shops in south Wales, mostly in Swansea, Carmarthenshire and Neath Port Talbot.

A queue at a café or restaurant is often a good sign, in my opinion. It shows it's popular and has a good reputation. Sometimes, people are actually queuing out the door for lunch from Jenkins, especially on a Saturday, but on my visit on Thursday the queue was moving quickly. I knew what I wanted for lunch that day, but I did have a moment to peruse all the other options – and was impressed with the number of options for a baguette meal deal, and all the cakes and tarts looked delicious! At the counter, I had a look at the various pasties and pastries you can have in Jenkins – and was surprised at some of the bizarre flavours and combinations of fillings!

I grew up in the south-west of England and since moving to Swansea nine years ago, I have noticed that pasties seem to be less popular here than in Devon and Cornwall. As a teenager, a ‘pasty shop lunch’ with my parents or grandparents was a staple of many a half term – and pasties were often cheaper than McDonalds burgers and Subway sandwiches, so my friends and I would sometimes head to a pasty shop too. You’d often see shelf upon shelf of Cornish pasties in the centre of the counter at a local pasty shop – so I was super surprised to see just one small shelf of Cornish pasties right down the far-end of the counter in Jenkins. It seems non-traditional fillings are more popular here, so take front and centre stage!

For me, I don’t think you can beat a proper, traditional Cornish pasty with beef skirt, potato and turnip but if that’s not your thing, Jenkins serves various pasties with different fillings including: corned beef pasties, spicy chicken pasties, cheese and jalapeno pasties and chicken and mushroom pasties. Sausage rolls, vegetable rolls, bacon and cheese pastries and and chicken and stuffing ‘parcels’ are among the other savoury goods available. And for those with a sweet tooth, there’s loads of tempting treats like crème tarts, trifle, Strawberry Manchester tarts and custard slices.

Meanwhile, Greggs serves a range of baked goods including a chicken bake, cheese and onion bake, their renowned steak bake, a sausage, bean and cheese melt and sausage rolls. They don’t serve Cornish pasties per se, so the day after I tried my pasty from Jenkins, I ordered a ‘beef and vegetable pasty’ at Greggs as it appeared to be the most similar to the traditional Cornish pasty I’d had in Jenkins. My local Greggs store also stocks a range of cold and hot baguettes and a small selection of sweet treats including tarts and doughnuts too.

For two of my lunches this week, I ordered a pasty and a bacon and cheese pastry, first from Jenkins and then, the following day, from Greggs – here’s what I thought:

‘Cornish Pasty’ from Jenkins

My first impressions were promising – and I was not disappointed. The pasty had been cooked fresh so was still warm and was a good size, though I was pleased to have something else too as I had skipped breakfast and was pretty hungry!

The pasty’s pastry was the perfect colour and was flaky and crumbly – just as it should be – but wasn’t dry so it held together really well and kept the filling moist. I really hate when you order a pasty, pastry or baguette and there’s barely any filling, so I was so pleased to see loads of meat and potato packed into my pasty. And often, pasties can taste really salty or peppery, but this wasn’t the case with this pasty, it tasted well-seasoned but not overpowering! There was a good amount of swede/turnip (in Cornwall/Cornish pasties, swede is turnip, unless it’s swede – don’t ask!) in the pasty too.

I would have loved if the pasty had been served with something, maybe a few crisps or a side salad, to make it more of a meal and whilst the beef was tender and there was plenty of it, it didn’t have a particularly strong flavour. With this in mind, I’m giving the pasty a solid 8/10.

‘Bacon and Cheese Savoury’ from Jenkins

It’s a recurring joke among the team I work with that I have cheese in my lunch a lot, whether with pasta or on a jacket potato or in a salad – I can’t go without cheese, unlike one of my colleagues who doesn’t like cheese at all but has never really said why! Anyway, I like cheese and I like bacon so a ‘bacon and cheese savoury’ from Jenkins sounded right up my ally.

I wasn’t blown away by its appearance, the pastry was quite dark and it looked a bit squashed and sad – but it tasted better than it looked. Again, the pastry was flaky and crumbly, just as I like it, and there was plenty of melted cheese and bacon – though the bacon was very, very salty. Not a bad little snack or accompaniment to a meal, but my pasty was much better! I’m giving the bacon and cheese savoury a 6/10.

'Beef & Vegetable Pasty' from Greggs

Greggs is perhaps the best-known bakery chain in the UK but growing up, I never went to Greggs as there were so many local pasty shops and some wonderful independent bakeries along the Barbican and near the Hoe, in my home city of Plymouth. Since moving to Wales, I’ve seen several Greggs bakeries appear in retail parks and in otherwise empty units in shopping streets but I don’t tend to go to Greggs very often. The bakery company was founded by John Gregg in 1939 who would cycle around Newcastle delivering fresh eggs and yeast to people across the city.

A decade later, Mr Gregg decided to set up his own bakery, opening his first bakery shop in 1951 in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne and over the decades that followed, Greggs opened bakery shops in towns and cities across the UK and became a household name for its pastries and sausage rolls. Today, there are around 2,300 Greggs bakeries in the UK.

I didn’t know anything about the history of Greggs until I researched it for this article – but I’d have to have been living under a rock not to know how popular and well-known Greggs bakery is. I had high hopes for my pasty from such a well-known company, but it just didn’t live up to the Greggs hype.

Whilst my pasty looked appetising on the shelf, it looked less appetising close-up and whilst the pastry was flaky and crumbly, the actual filling to the pasty was disappointing. Whilst it had plenty of beef, potato and vegetables, all the filling was sort of mushed together and none of it had really had any taste. It filled me up, because there was lots packed in there, but didn’t have any flavour. It was pretty forgettable to be honest and I don’t think I’d have a pasty from there again. 4/10

'Bacon and Cheese Wrap' from Greggs

The bacon and cheese wrap, basically the same as the ‘bacon and cheese savoury’ from Jenkins, looked ten times better than the Jenkins one – but was so disappointing. Whilst the pastry had a lovely rich colour to it, the pastry was very dry and inside the wrap, the bacon was very salty and there was barely any cheese. 5/10

Final thoughts

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with eating or drinking at a chain or company that has hundreds of sites around the UK (who doesn’t love a cheap and cheerful pint from Wetherspoon?!) but when you’re able to support a local business and/or one that has fewer sites, you may be more impressed. Perhaps a company with fewer sites takes greater pride in their products as they know customers have lots of other places they could go with their money, or maybe they’re more in control of what’s served every day. Either way, going forwards I’m certainly more likely to order my lunch from a local company like Jenkins over national-chain Greggs.