Greggs Remains on Track
Greggs, the UK’s largest retail bakery, is on track to expand its number of shops by approximately 80 during its 2011 financial year. During the first 18 weeks, the group opened a total of 25 new shops, making a net addition of 20 after five closures, giving a total of 1,507 shops. Greggs passed the milestone of its 1,500th shop in March.
However, the group is continuing to see significant and rising input cost pressures as a result of global commodity price increases, in particular fuel, energy and key ingredients. Greggs expects to mitigate these challenges through its ongoing initiatives to make the business even more efficient, thereby minimising the need to pass on inflationary cost increases to customers.
Greggs is projecting marginally positive like-for-like sales the full year and further top line sales growth as its rate of new shop openings gathers pace.
