Greggs has published a strong set of results for the half-year to June.

The bakery retailer’s group sales for the 24 weeks to 14 June 2008 were up by 7.7% to £276m. Pre-tax profits, excluding exceptionals and property, dipped 4.3% to £14.1m. Managing director Sir Michael Darrington said rising input costs had affected its margins. "The key thing is we deliberately didn’t put our prices up as fast as our ingredients costs went up. That’s taking a long-term view," he said.

Darrington will now step down and hand over to new chief exe-cutive Ken McMeikan.