IT HAS been the pastry product that has caused arguments across social media, but residents in Basingstoke are yet to get a taste of the new Greggs vegan sausage roll.

Today (January 3) the nationwide bakery chain launched its vegan sausage roll, but none have been made available in Basingstoke, despite the town centre having four stores.

The company, which sells 1.5m traditional pork sausage rolls a week, says the new version, which will be on sale from Thursday, has been designed to mirror some of the original’s classic features. It will have, Greggs says, 96 layers of light and crisp puff pastry – made with vegetable oil – and a “bespoke” Quorn filling.

With the new plant-based product being rolled out, residents in Basingstoke tweeted their disappointment that they were unable to get their hands on the product.

One user, @antorah tweeted: “I just made a special trip to my local Greggs to try one, only to be told that it's not available in Basingstoke. #poor #disappointed.”

Within the town centre vicinity there are stores in Festival Place, Basingstoke bus station, the Malls, Wote Street and the Houndmills industrial estate.

A spokesperson from Greggs said: “Our vegan sausage roll is available in 950 shops. Before looking to roll it out further we are keen to gauge customer demand.”

The new product has caused a storm on social media when polarising journalist Piers Morgan decided to chime in with his opinion, tweeting: “Nobody was waiting for a vegan bloody sausage, you PC-ravaged clowns.”

The Good Morning Britain host also took swipes at his fellow celebrities who were in favour of the new vegan pastry.

Since going on sale today, a number of Greggs stores across the UK quickly ran out of the product, with many people tweeting images of their food to Mr Morgan.