Greggs posts strong start to the year

Greggs has reported that its like-for-like sales grew by 2.5% in the first 19 weeks in 2026, improving further to 3.3% in the most recent 10 weeks.

Total sales in the 19 weeks to 9 May 2026 were up 7.5% to £800m, compared to £744m during the same period in 2025.

During the period, Greggs opened 41 shops, including 17 franchised sites, but closed 21 stores, including 11 relocations. This brought the chain’s estate to 2,759 as of 9 May, comprising 2,141 company-managed shops and 618 franchised units.

The company aims to open 120 sites during the full year, and in the coming weeks it will debut its first international airport shop at Tenerife South Airport, in partnership with Lagardère Travel Retail.

Greggs is in the process of preparing to open a new frozen product manufacturing and logistics facility in Derby, as well as undertaking an internal fit-out of its new national distribution centre in Kettering. The sites are estimated to be operational in 2026 and 2027 respectively.

The company stated: “Like-for-like sales performance has improved against what remains a challenging market, with good operational cost control supporting encouraging year-on-year profit progress in the year to date.

“There has been no change to the overall outlook for cost inflation, which we expect to be around 3% on a like-for-like basis. Our forward buying of key commodities continues to provide protection against increased inflation in the near term; we have forward purchase agreements in place representing circa five months of cover for our food and packaging needs and 85% of our 2026 energy and fuel requirements are fixed in price. In addition, circa 50% of our 2027 energy and fuel requirements are fixed.

“We are monitoring the situation in the Middle East and should the conflict continue and become prolonged we, like all food retailers, will likely see higher overall cost inflation through the end of 2026 and into 2027.”

Last year, Greggs’ total sales rose 6.8%. In that period, the chain trialled three smaller-format Bitesize Greggs shops, which were launched in November to target high-footfall locations and travel hubs.

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