How big can the bakery chain Greggs get? A trip to Glasgow offers a clue: a dozen of its sausage roll-selling outlets surround the central train station. With that kind of concentration of stores, there’s clearly room for the FTSE 250 chain to continue expanding elsewhere.
More than 1,800 of its shops are on the high street, up about 500 in a decade. The chain, founded in 1939 as a Tyneside baker, talks about growing “substantially beyond” 2,000 outlets.
Lately, things have got tougher. Ingredient prices, which make up about a quarter of costs, are expected to have risen by about 7% since last year. That’s forced
Greggs to put up prices: sausage rolls went from 85p to 90p last year. A tide of new