Greggs set to serve up better than-expected FY profits

15th Dec 2014 07:24

Good weather has helped baker Greggs to predict annual profits ahead of hopes.Greggs said favourable trading with "generally helpful" weather enabled it to increase own shop like-for-like sales by 5.2% in the 24 weeks to 13 December.Year-to-date own shop like-for-like sales rose 4.2% against a 1.1% decline in the same period last year, although total sales rose 3.6% in the year to date against 3.7% last time.Greggs has been modernising its shops and introducing new-style pizzas and pasties. It said it now expected full year profits for the 53 weeks to 3 January 2015 to be ahead of analysts' expectations.Chief executive Roger Whiteside said: "The strong performance that we reported in our September IMS has continued. Trading conditions have remained helpful but there is no doubt that customers are also responding to improvements in our product and service offer and to the investment we are making in the shop environment. "Whilst there is still much to play for over the final few weeks of the year we currently anticipate that full year profits will be ahead of analysts' expectations. We expect to make a further update on trading over the Christmas period in early January."