Greggs crumbles despite sales and profit rise

High street baker Greggs (LON:GRG) has reported that total sales rose by 14.7% during the half year ended 29th June and pre-tax profits climbed by 50%. Management said that trading remained strong, but they expect like-for-like growth to normalise over the second half due to strong comparatives.

Chief executive Roger Whiteside commented: “Greggs has delivered an exceptional first half performance, building on the strong finish to 2018. We have continued to make strategic progress with our programmes of investment in infrastructure to support future growth and in developing the products and channels to market that will help achieve our ambition to be the customers’ favourite for food-on-the-go.

“Given the strength of our year to date and the outlook, we have decided to increase investment in strategic initiatives in the second half of the year to help to deliver an even stronger customer proposition and further growth in the years ahead. Our expectations for underlying profits for the year as a whole remain unchanged“.

The price of Greggs shares fell by 6.29% to 2,234p (as of 14:20 BST).