Greggs plans to ramp up its capital expenditure programme in 2010, investing £15-20m more than last year on opening new shops, refits and upgrading its central bakeries.

The bakery chain has budgeted capital expenditure of between £45-50m for the year as it starts to implement its plan of adding a further 600 outlets to its current portfolio of 1,400 shops over the next 5-10 years. This compares to expenditure of £30m last year.

Funds will be spent on opening 50-60 new stores in 2010 and refitting around 120 existing stores. Work will also begin in the second half of the year on new replacement bakeries in Penrith and Newcastle, and securing a site for a new bakery in the South.

According to Greggs’ prelimanry results for the 53 weeks ending 2 January 2010, the company made a pre-tax profit of £48.8m, up 8% on the previous year. Sales were up 4.8% to £658m, with like-for-like sales up 0.8%.

In the 10 weeks to March 2010, total sales increased by 2.8%, with like-for-like sales up 0.8%.