The popular chain is hiking a number of prices as exectives warned the government about costs
Greggs is poised to bump up the cost of several meal deal offerings and select individual products from this week. Starting today (2 October), the high street bakery giant will be hiking the price of its breakfast deal – which bundles together a breakfast roll or baguette, a hot beverage and a side – from £3.95 to £4.50.
Meanwhile, its two-item deal, featuring a main product and a drink, will climb from £2.95 to £3.15. Despite the increases, Chief Executive Roisin Currie has maintained these packages still deliver “exceptional value”.
“I’m not sure you can go anywhere else and get that two-part deal for £3.15 or indeed that three-part deal,” she declared. A handful of other products will witness 5p price hikes, including Greggs’ Empire Biscuit range.
Currie pointed out that “a number of our other items will be protected and will not move”. “We obviously do everything we can to keep prices as low as possible, but we are operating in an inflationary environment,” she explained.
Currie revealed that various pressures, including employment expenses, had driven the price increases as the grab-and-go food retailer hopes for a “balanced budget” from the government.
“Balanced in terms of looking after businesses but also in this high-inflation environment, making sure the government is very attuned to the pressure on people’s incomes. It’s making sure we have reasonable notice and a good lead to time to make sure we can plan for whatever decisions the government makes.”
Greggs has been developing its meal deal offers in recent months, having launched the three-part breakfast deal in July, followed by the rollout of a three-part lunch meal deal last month. “We’ve had a two-part meal deal for a number of years now, and what we’ve seen from consumer behaviour is a lot of our customers actually add on an extra item. So, we’ve brought the three-part deal really just to make it easier for those customers to shop into that bigger deal,” explained Currie.
She highlighted the unique offerings of Greggs, stating: “What is different from us to a lot of the competition is we can offer both cold sandwiches and hot sandwiches, items such as the toasties. We can also offer the chicken goujons, the wedges and then a variety of hot and cold drinks.”
She added: “We’ve brought a combination of items together and we believe it’s very compelling.”
However, despite these positive changes, Greggs experienced a slowdown in growth during the third quarter. Like-for-like sales rose by a mere 1.5% in the 13 weeks leading up to 27 September, compared with a 2.6% increase in the first half.
Despite this, the board’s expectations for full-year results remained unchanged, with operating profit forecast to be modestly below the level achieved in 2024.