A NORTH-EAST baker is expanding into Northern Ireland.

Greggs will open a trial site on the M2, in Belfast, alongside motorway service company Applegreen, later this month.

The move follows similar agreements with Moto and Euro Garages across the rest of the UK, as the Newcastle-based company looks to supplement the success of its high street stores.

A spokeswoman added: “It will run for a 12-month period and enable us to assess Northern Ireland’s appetite.”

The move comes after Greggs opened stores in Jersey, with Roger Whiteside, chief executive, previously telling The Northern Echo he would look to revive previous expansion plans to operate 2,000 outlets, which would include more retail park and motorway service sites.

He added: “We’ve had a year of exceptional progress and are confident we can deliver another year of growth.

“Our plan is working and we are sticking to it, and we will still be UK-based in our growth.

“We have opened stores in Jersey, so in some respects we are starting to creep off the UK mainland, but in reality the focus of the plan is the UK.”

The company has 1,650 outlets and was founded in the 1930s, when John Robson Gregg sold eggs and yeast from his bicycle.