BrandInsightAI Insights
Food · a live data story

Food-to-Go & Bakeries,
according to AI

Every week we ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the questions real UK consumers ask about food-to-go & bakeries — and record exactly which brands they put forward. Right now, Greggs owns the conversation.

0 AI answers this run · 0 brands named · measured, never estimated

The podium

Greggs is the default answer.

Named in 43% of food-to-go & bakeries answers, typically in position 1.8. Tesco follows at 28%, Pret A Manger at 20%.

Tesco
28% of answers
Greggs
43% of answers
Pret A Manger
20% of answers
The full board

Every brand AI names, ranked.

Visibility is the share of answers naming the brand; citation share is its slice of all brand-owned pages cited; read→cited is how often its pages convert a read into a citation.

#BrandVisibilityAvg. positionCitation shareRead→cited
1Greggs 43% 1.8 26% 36%
2Tesco 28% 2.7 6% 15%
3Pret A Manger 20% 2.8 6% 17%
4Costa Coffee 20% 3.5 6% 17%
5Starbucks 13% 4.0 0%
6Marks & Spencer 12% 3.9 10%
7McDonald's 8% 2.4 3% 7%
8Asda 8% 3.6 0%
9Caffè Nero 8% 3.6 6% 40%
10Morrisons 8% 3.6 3%
11Gail's Bakery 8% 3.8 3% 33%
12Cooplands 7% 3.0 6% 25%
13Beigel Bake 7% 3.8 0%
14Sainsbury's 7% 4.0 0% 0%
15Upper Crust 5% 2.7 0%
What AI wants here

Food-to-Go & Bakeries is decided on affinity.

Being named is visibility. Underneath it, every answer describes a brand in three ways — how much it stands out, how much it belongs, and how much it is returned to. In food-to-go & bakeries, Marks & Spencer leads affinity at 111 against Poundbakery at 75, indexed on the category at 100.

Affinity
Marks & Spencer111
Poundbakery75
36-point spread · tracks being named 0.53
Attraction
Marks & Spencer103
Poundbakery70
33-point spread · tracks being named 0.43
Attachment
Tesco112
Patisserie Valerie83
29-point spread · tracks being named 0.51
Tesco: Attraction 97, Affinity 101, Attachment 112
Tesco
Habit, not love
Sainsbury's: Attraction 99, Affinity 104, Attachment 108
Sainsbury's
Habit, not love
Marks Spencer: Attraction 103, Affinity 111, Attachment 100
Marks & Spencer
Quietly trusted
AttractionAffinityAttachment

Each whorl lights one ring per index threshold cleared. See the full food-to-go & bakeries desire edition →

Who AI trusts here

The referees of food-to-go & bakeries.

The independent sources AI models cite when answering food-to-go & bakeries questions — the places a brand needs to be seen, reviewed and ranked.

reddit.com 6 cites
bakery79.com 4 cites
uppercrust.co.uk 4 cites
ikrafts.co.uk 3 cites
mirror.co.uk 3 cites
nhs.uk 3 cites
beelivery.com 2 cites
britbreakfast.com 2 cites
deliveroo.co.uk 2 cites
facebook.com 2 cites
Read is not cited

Caffè Nero converts reads into citations. Sainsbury's doesn't.

When Claude or ChatGPT opens a brand's own pages while answering, does the page make the cited-sources list? Caffè Nero converts 40% of reads; Sainsbury's just 0%. That gap is a content problem, not a visibility problem.

Caffè Nero · read 5×40%
Greggs · read 14×36%
Gail's Bakery · read 3×33%
Cooplands · read 4×25%
Pret A Manger · read 12×17%
Costa Coffee · read 6×17%
Tesco · read 13×15%
McDonald's · read 15×7%
Sainsbury's · read 16×0%
Full data table
#BrandVisibilityAvg. positionCitation shareRead→cited
1Greggs43%1.826%36%
2Tesco28%2.76%15%
3Pret A Manger20%2.86%17%
4Costa Coffee20%3.56%17%
5Starbucks13%4.00%
6Marks & Spencer12%3.910%
7McDonald's8%2.43%7%
8Asda8%3.60%
9Caffè Nero8%3.66%40%
10Morrisons8%3.63%
11Gail's Bakery8%3.83%33%
12Cooplands7%3.06%25%
13Beigel Bake7%3.80%
14Sainsbury's7%4.00%0%
15Upper Crust5%2.70%
Which AI you ask

All three models agree: Greggs.

A rare consensus — every model puts Greggs first, and their top-five lists overlap 22%. Winning here means winning everywhere at once.

Claude recommends
Greggs
named in 40% of its answers
Gemini recommends
Greggs
named in 50% of its answers
ChatGPT recommends
Greggs
named in 40% of its answers

Brands whose visibility swings most between models — the bar per model, widest gap on the right.

Tesco 30pp
Costa Coffee 30pp
Marks & Spencer 30pp
Starbucks 25pp
Asda 15pp
Sainsbury's 15pp
Upper Crust 15pp
Cooplands 15pp
ClaudeGeminiChatGPT
The data behind this chart
BrandClaudeGeminiChatGPTSpread
Tesco15%45%25%30pp
Costa Coffee10%40%10%30pp
Marks & Spencer5%30%0%30pp
Starbucks5%30%5%25pp
Asda15%10%0%15pp
Sainsbury's5%15%0%15pp
Upper Crust0%15%0%15pp
Cooplands0%15%5%15pp
Caffè Nero0%15%10%15pp
Greggs40%50%40%10pp
What AI reads here

Product pages carry food-to-go & bakeries.

Every page AI opened while answering, classified by what kind of page it is. Product pages supply the most citations; Comparisons convert best — 88% of the ones models opened were actually cited.

Product pages
33 cited · 22 read only
60% of reads cited
Listicles
24 cited · 9 read only
73% of reads cited
Editorial
19 cited · 15 read only
56% of reads cited
category-page
18 cited · 4 read only
82% of reads cited
pricing
17 cited · 5 read only
77% of reads cited
Other
9 cited · 20 read only
31% of reads cited
Comparisons
7 cited · 1 read only
88% of reads cited
News
7 cited · 4 read only
64% of reads cited
The data behind this chart
Page typeCitedRead but not citedConversion
Product pages332260%
Listicles24973%
Editorial191556%
category-page18482%
pricing17577%
Other92031%
Comparisons7188%
News7464%
What gets cited

Structured data is what separates cited from ignored.

Of the food-to-go & bakeries pages models actually opened, how much more often each feature's pages ended up in the cited sources. Structured data is worth 21 percentage points; hard statistics pages fare 31pp worse. Measured within the read population, so selection can't flatter it.

Structured data +21pp
Named author +21pp
Specifications +6pp
Updated this year +3pp
Answer up front -5pp
Comparison table -12pp
Hard statistics -31pp
The data behind this chart
FeaturePages withCited %Pages withoutCited %Difference
Structured data16767%10546%+21pp
Named author10072%17251%+21pp
Specifications3165%24158%+6pp
Updated this year9561%17758%+3pp
Answer up front11156%16161%-5pp
Comparison table5549%21761%-12pp
Hard statistics5634%21665%-31pp
Citation readiness

Cooplands builds pages AI can quote.

Readiness scores each brand's own pages on the structure models reward — a direct answer up front, tables, hard numbers, named authors, structured data, recency, specifications. Starbucks is the widest gap: well-built pages that still aren't converting into citations.

BrandReadinessPages citedPages profiled
Cooplands 42 67% 3
Wenzel's the Bakers 42 100% 3
Marks & Spencer 28 75% 4
Starbucks 25 0% 95
McDonald's 24 9% 11
Asda 22 0% 4
Greggs 21 18% 34
Pret A Manger 19 2% 96
Lidl 17 0% 3
Tesco 14 13% 15

Readiness is the share of eight measurable structural signals present on a brand's profiled pages. It is a build-quality measure, not a ranking of the brand.

What the answers answer

The questions food-to-go & bakeries pages have to settle.

Read straight off the pages AI cited: the consumer questions cited content answers most often. Content that fails to settle these is content models have no reason to quote.

What are some child-friendly cafes in London?
What is included in a Tesco meal deal?
What types of cake boxes are available?
What meal deals does Greggs offer?
Keep exploring

Nineteen more categories.

Method: 20 unbranded consumer prompts per category, spread across the buying journey, run weekly against ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Read→cited uses Claude and ChatGPT only (Gemini does not separate the two). Correlational observations of model behaviour at the time of the run. Data from the run completed Wed, 02 Sep 2026 09:36:02 GMT.

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