Greggs sales feeling the heat

THE hot weather is cutting into sales at Greggs, the country's leading chain of bakers.

The company, which has more than 1200 outlets, said broiling workers are losing their appetite for lunch. Managing director Mike Darrington said: 'The hotter it gets, the less people eat, particularly during the day.' The shares fell 125p to 3075p.

Lines selling particularly badly include hot fare such as pies and pasties and sticky treats such as doughnuts and cream cakes. Even chilled sandwiches are being left on the shelf. Like-for-like sales in the six weeks to 2 August rose only 1.5%, compared with almost 5% in the first half of the year.

The variation from week to week had been huge, Darrington said. When rain returned last week, they were up 4.6%. 'You only need 5% of people to skip lunch and that's 5% of your sales gone,' he added.

First-half pre-tax profits rose more than 13% to £12.3m, and the dividend is raised 9% to 25.5p.