Greggs rises on strong Christmas results
Experts said that they were “encouraged” by Greggs performance after the firm posted total sales growth of 9% for the final part of the year.
Darren Shirley, analyst at Shore Capital, said: “Greggs has reported excellent results in our view, which is ahead of expectations.
“For the five weeks ended January 7, Greggs has reported total sales growth of 10.8%, including a like-for-like sales contribution of 5.1%, which is a sharp increase on the 5.4% and 0.8% reported respectively for the 13 weeks to October 1.
Outperforming
LFL sales were also up by 4%, with the firm outperforming for the full year on the strength of December’s results, according to Shirley.
Greggs chief executive, Ken McMeikan said the firm had performed well after a “tough year for high streets” and confirmed he expected the difficult trading environment continue into the new year.
He said: “Rising food and energy costs have been a feature of 2011 but to reduce the impact on customers we have continued to invest in promotional activity in order to maintain our value position in what has remained a very competitive market.
“Despite these pressures, we anticipate that we will report full year results in line with expectations when we make our preliminary announcement on March 14 2012."
