Salads and iced matchas give Greggs heatwave lift

Iced drinks and salads helped high street baker Greggs boost sales in the heatwave.

The chain saw total revenues top £1.1 billion for the 26 weeks to June 27, which was 7.2 per cent higher than the same period a year ago.

Pre-tax profit jumped by a fifth to £76 million, which the firm said was partly down to the launch of its ‘bake at home’ frozen range in Tesco alongside an existing partnership with Iceland Foods.

Bosses added the Newcastle-headquartered operator – which began life selling eggs and yeast to North East families from a bicycle more than 80 years ago – has also benefited from demand for products including iced matcha lattes, a chicken roll launched as a sausage and vegan roll alternative and an expanded salad range.

Roisin Currie, Greggs’ chief executive, said: “When temperatures get above 30 degrees, people start to eat less.

“We’ve been much more resilient this year because we learned some lessons.”

Roisin said Greggs was focused on “keeping it exciting for customers” with new products like a blueberry matcha iced latte that was appealing particularly to younger consumers.

She said: “We had also just launched, before the heatwave started to hit, a new range of salads, with some favourites in there, but also some new products such as our prawn layered pasta salad and our chicken caesar along with our grains and green salad.

“The timing of those was great and they have sold well.”

Roisin added customers have also been choosing fruit pots, yoghurts and wraps in the hot weather, as well as picnic food like packs of sausage rolls.

Greggs had 2773 shops at the end of June, and is expecting to have opened up to 110 on a net basis throughout 2026.

The company – which earlier this year unveiled a Tenerife South Airport store expansion – is trialling a Greggs Express format, which involves self-service units with a smaller range of food items and drinks located within petrol stations, with ten expected to be opened by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the business said overall cost inflation over the first half of the year was 2.2 per cent.

Roisin said: “The volatility of the Middle East and the impact on energy prices probably plays into what may happen towards the back end of this year and into 2027.

“One of the key costs we’ve got is wages, so that does hit us because that is an inflationary environment.”

However, she said costs for ingredients such as coffee and cocoa, which had spiked last year, had started to come down.

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