Trading Statement
January 07 2004 - 1:00AM
UK Regulatory
RNS Number:9281T
Greggs PLC
07 January 2004
7 January 2004
GREGGS plc
TRADING UPDATE
Greggs is the UK's leading retailer specialising in sandwiches, savouries and
other bakery products, with a particular focus on takeaway food and catering.
It has over 1,200 retail outlets throughout the UK, trading under the Greggs and
Bakers Oven brands.
Group Managing Director Sir Michael Darrington reports: 'Like-for-like sales
showed a gradually improving trend during the second half, as we recovered from
the impact of the summer heatwave. In our last trading update we reported that
like-for-like sales in the 18 weeks to 18 October 2003 were up 1.7 per cent.
This increased to 3.0 per cent in the following 10 weeks, giving an increase of
2.2 per cent over the full 28 week period to 27 December 2003. We ended the
year with a like-for-like sales increase over the Christmas period of 3.5 per
cent.
We opened 68 new shops during the year and closed 39, of which 13 were re-sites.
This gave a net addition of 29 shops, making a total of 1,231 at the year end.
We are continuing to recover increases in raw material prices and are benefiting
from our actions to reduce costs across the group. We therefore continue to
expect that we will report a year of satisfactory progress in 2003, reflecting
the fundamental strengths of our brands, format and people.'
The preliminary announcement of results for the 52 weeks ended 27 December 2003
is scheduled for Friday, 5 March 2004.
ENQUIRIES:
Greggs plc Hudson Sandler
Mike Darrington, Managing Director Keith Hann / Wendy Baker
Malcolm Simpson, Financial Director Tel: 020 7796 4133
Tel: 0191 281 7721
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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