This week, in my inbox, I received Greggs’ interim results – and I immediately thought of Ryan Reynolds. I know I had very recently seen his film Deadpool vs Wolverine (which is excellent, by the way) but even so….then I twigged.
A few years ago Reynolds did a Snack Wars test for LadBible where he had to choose between British and Canadian (he is from Canada) snacks. In this case it was between Canadian pancakes and a Greggs sausage roll. Nearly 10 million people – including me – saw that he chose the sausage roll!
So back to the makers of that sausage roll and their half-year total sales figures for 2024 are £960.6m, up from £844m last year. And its underlying pre-tax profit is up from £63.7m to £74.1 for the same period.
Of course those of you with a Greggs store on your sites will already know this because presumably sales are booming for you too.
There’s no doubt that Greggs is a major success story – from regional bakery to national food-to-go giant in just a few years.
I was never a massive fan until I had to visit somewhere on a regular basis for a year, and the nearest food-to-go outlet was a Greggs. Others recommended it but I must confess I was a bit sniffy about it. However, once I went in and took a proper look at their range I was quite impressed. As long as they were in stock of the Mexican Chicken flatbread I was happy. I was also pleased because whatever I picked up on my way to the till, always seemed to come to a very reasonable price.
However, there has been faux outrage in the wider media over the fact that a single Greggs sausage roll has gone up by 5p, with a multipack up by 10p. There are other price rises too but to be honest I don’t think they are that bad – considering the huge price rises on other everyday items in all shops. When I recently went into a Pret a Manger on an MFG forecourt – which was a brilliant site, by the way – their prices were really quite high – but I did pay them. I had a fantastic salmon salad which I couldn’t fault in any way.
My one gripe about Greggs is the closing times on forecourt sites. Many shut up shop at 5pm which, to me, is very annoying given the site is open later or sometimes open 24/7. Of course I realise opening much later is probably too costly but 5pm seems too early.
In Greggs results ,it announced that are even more stores to come - 99 new shops, including 30 relocations, opened in the first half of this year. There were 18 closures (excluding relocations), giving 51 net new shops which means there were 2,524 shops trading as of June 29. Overall the company says it is on track to achieve 140 to 160 net new shop openings in 2024.
However, what really caught my attention was the news that Greggs’ evening sales are growing. Now I am hoping that ‘evening’ for them means later than 5pm. Let’s see….
