Greggs has warned its profits will be under pressure this year as consumer confidence remains depressed. It comes as the high street bakery chain reports results for the final quarter of 2025.
Sales in the three months to 27 December increased by 7.4%, with like-for-like growth of 2.9% – an improvement on the 1.5% reported in the third quarter as Greggs was hit by the summer heatwave.
Total sales for 2025 were up 6.8% to £2.2bn as Greggs boosted its estate of stores to 2,739. However, full-year like-for-like growth of 2.4% was well below the 5.5% growth achieved in 2024, which Greggs pinned on subdued consumer confidence and “weather extremes”.
Greggs said this morning market conditions remained challenging, but highlighted an outperformance versus the wider market as it continued to gain market share.
The group struggled in 2025 as its growth slowed, issuing a profits warning in July, with operating profits for the year expected to come in below the £195m registered in 2024.
Greggs upheld its full-year forecasts in today’s trading update thanks to continued strong cost management through 2025.
“We made good progress in 2025, in a challenging year where subdued consumer confidence impacted the food-to-go market,” CEO Roisin Currie said.
“Against this backdrop, I’m pleased Greggs outperformed the wider market and increased its market share of visits.
“We enter 2026 with a strong pipeline of new opportunities to make Greggs even more convenient for customers. This is underpinned by the investments we have been making in our supply chain capacity, which start to become operational this year. Our ongoing focus on efficiency allows us to deliver exceptional value to customers who are managing their budgets carefully.”
Greggs added cost inflation should be lower in 2026, but it continued to expect consumer confidence to be a headwind to growth, which, along with the costs of introducing new supply chain capacity, would put “some temporary pressure on margins”.
As a result, profits for 2026 are expected to be at a similar level to last year, with any year-on-year improvement contingent on a recovery in the consumer backdrop.
Shares in the group crashed by about 40% in value in 2025 as investors turned pessimistic about its prospects.
No comments yet