Yahoo Finance Greggs raises price of sausage rolls for second time this year
Greggs has raised the price of its sausage rolls for the second time this year after the cost of ingredients increased more than expected.
The high street chain said from this week it will be selling its sausage rolls for £1.15 each, compared to £1.05 at the start of the year, and £1.10 in May.
The company said it expects costs to be up by around 9pc this year compared to last year, as ingredients, packaging and energy prices move higher.
Roisin Currie, chief executive of Greggs, said: "If we hadn't needed to move it by five pence, would that have been our choice? Absolutely." Prices on some other items have also risen by between 5p and 10p, although Greggs said it had kept prices the same on certain products, such as the breakfast meal deal and some coffees.
"We absolutely want to retain our value leadership, so we always watch what our competitors are doing to make sure that if we are moving prices, we still are the value leader in the market."
She added: "We think inflation pressures will continue into next year. Given the uncertainty, it's hard to predict what might happen, but potentially we think there may well be more to go and we're trying to work hard to mitigate that."
Despite having to raise prices, Greggs said demand for its pastries and sandwiches remained buoyant, with sales up 15pc over the past three months, in a sign that cost-of-living pressures were causing customers to turn away from pricier cafe chains and instead opt for value options. Shares in Greggs jumped 9.7pc.
Ms Currie said: "There will be people that haven't been regular customers and we'd love to think that if we can demonstrate the value that we offer, when they're considering where to go for that next visit, that we get that extra visit from them."
She said there had not been a significant change in what customers were buying in recent weeks and a switching down to cheaper items, although it was continuing to see more people come back into its stores for snacks. This had dropped off during the pandemic, when fewer people were walking around town and city centres during the day.
