Greggs has revealed it has found a piece of land which it believes is the right location for its planned new bakery in the south.
Chief executive Ken McMeikan told British Baker that plans for a new bakery site in the Wiltshire area was on the agenda at Greggs’ board meeting this morning (Wednesday 12 May).
“We discussed a piece of land that we think is in the right location, but which we cannot disclose yet,” said McMeikan. “We’ve narrowed it down to two or three sites, which we’re particularly keen on, but we think there’s one that stands out slightly above the other two.”
He said that providing the plan progresses, subject to planning permission, “the firm is on track with the original timetable we set out in terms of opening a new bakery in the Wiltshire area”, adding that Greggs would hope to have the new facility up and running “somewhere around 2012 potentially”.
In its interim management statement for the 18 weeks to 8 May, 2010, the firm said it was on track to open a net 50-60 shops this year, and announced plans to ramp up its shop refit programme, as it felt it had some “catching up to do”.
“We’re on track to open a third of the new shops and 40% of the refits by the half year,” said McMeikan.
Although like-for-like sales were up a modest 0.6%, with total sales increasing 2.6%, McMeikan added that he was very pleased with Greggs’ sales performance, particularly as sales have continued to increase against its strongest period of like-for-like sales in 2009.
“We remain encouraged by sales from new products and have sold more than two million breakfasts to our customers since the national launch in February of our breakfast offer – bacon or sausage in a fresh, Greggs-baked roll,” commented chairman Derek Netherton.
McMeikan added that the firm saw further growth opportunities in the breakfast market, and planned to introduce more breakfast products going forward.
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