Greggs has launched its first ever Eco Drive-Thru fitted with a range of new sustainability initiatives that help reduce waste, use less water and lower energy usage.
Located at Easton Lane in Winchester, the new site aims to trial new eco-features that, if successful, will be rolled out across other shops in the bakery chain’s estate. These include:
- Sun tubes to direct sunlight from the roof into the store to reduce artificial lighting
- Low energy light fittings and daylight harvesting technology, with a wireless control system which adapts to lighting in real time through smart sensor nodes
- Solar panels to power all of its in store digital signage throughout the year
- Rainwater harvesting unit with a capacity of 3,000 litres, which is expected to reduce water usage by around 13%
- Heat pump air conditioning and overdoor heater systems, which work in conjunction to balance air temperature, as well as a heat recovery system which utilises warm air from refrigeration extraction to warm the air, and a heat pump system that uses surrounding air to warm water
Whilst the new Winchester site is the first of its kind in drive-thru format, its marks the second Eco-Shop for Greggs following the one it opened in Northampton in 2022. That store helped trial initiatives including knee-operated sinks, under-counter water heaters, energy efficient ovens and more sustainable refrigerant gas. With new technologies having been developed since, however, a new testbed was required to explore more innovative sustainability initiatives, noted Greggs.
In its latest sustainability report – The Greggs Pledge – published in April, the company revealed it was planning to rollout existing Eco-Shop elements across 30% of its estate this year, having reached 27% in 2024. As of 17 May 2025, it operates a total of 2,638 sites (2,077 company-managed shops and 561 franchised units).
“We’re so excited to have launched our first ever Eco Drive-Thru,” commented Tony Rowson, property director at Greggs. “As a leader in our sector, we take our responsibility to do right by the planet and communities we operate in seriously, and we do all that we can to make changes for the better.
“I’m proud of what we’ve achieved with our first Eco-Shop, ‘our shop of the future’, which means we can now test further materials and initiatives in this new unit, bringing us another step closer to reaching our Net Zero carbon objective,” Rowson added.
Earlier this month, Greggs began construction work on its new 311,551 sq ft national distribution centre in Kettering, which is expected to be built by this September and become fully operational by 2027. Its most recent trading update for the 20 weeks to 17 May 2025 showed a recovery from a weather-related slowdown at the start of 2025, with revenues of £784m representing a 7.4% increase year on year.
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