BAKERY giant Greggs has opened 70 new shops this year, boosting its overall sales.

But without the new outlets and its new motorway shop franchises, sales fell by 2.6% in the 14 weeks to October 6.

However, overall sales were up by 5.9% in the period with the new channels responsible for 3.5% of the sales growth.

Greggs, which has 1,600 shops nationwide, also said its ‘bake at home' sales through Iceland continued to perform strongly.

Chief executive, Ken McMeikan, said: “Consumers continued to show restraint in their spending and the adverse weather in July, followed by flooding in parts of the country at the end of September, also impacted sales in the period.

"Whilst we remain cautious about the economic outlook total sales will continue to benefit from the success of our new shop openings and expansion in wholesaling and franchising.

“However, we expect consumers to continue showing restraint and now anticipate like-for-like sales to remain negative in the final quarter.

“We will partially mitigate the impact of this lower like-for-like sales performance through tight control of costs and the increased profit contribution from wholesaling and franchising.”