Healthy outlook:

Greggs delivers £20m windfall

GREGGS has served up a £20 million windfall for shareholders after the chain’s freshly made sandwiches and £2 breakfasts boosted trading.

The firm, which runs 1,650 shops, said its like-for-like sales lifted 5.9 per cent in the 16 weeks to 25 April, with its upgraded range of healthy options under 400 calories proving popular.

The retailer will return £20m to investors through a 20p-a-share special dividend after carrying out a capital review of its business. This replaces a proposed £10m share buyback programme the firm had announced at its full-year results in March.

Greggs said the year had started strongly, supported by rising disposable incomes and low inflation costs from suppliers.

It said it now expects its first-half performance will be ahead of previous forecasts, and overall predicts good growth for the year.

Shore Capital analyst Darren Shirley said: “Greggs continue to surprise us on the strength of its trading momentum.”

The broker upgraded the firm’s full-year pre-tax profit forecast by around 3 per cent to £68.7m.