BAKER Greggs will open more stores and enhance its traditional pie and pasty range to complement a lucrative shift into coffee and healthier snack markets, its boss has revealed.

Roger Whiteside told The Northern Echo he expects to see 50 new outlets begin trading in 2016.

He said the increase will give the Newcastle-headquartered business more than 1,700 shops, putting it well on the way to meet its 2,000-store aim.

Mr Whiteside said a number of the new bases will trade on retail parks, business sites and by the roadside, with the latter expected to add to Greggs’ existing relationship with service station operators Euro Garage and Moto.

However, he said the company, founded in the 1930s, will also look to open and augment existing city and town centre stores, as it is doing in Newcastle, to maintain its presence across the whole consumer spectrum.

The plans were revealed after Greggs issued a trading update for the year to January 2, which showed its sharper focus on coffees, soups and healthier sandwiches and salads had lifted total sales 5.2 per cent higher on a year ago.

Sales covering its non-franchised outlets were 4.7 per cent better off.

Mr Whiteside, chief executive, said the results were further proof his mission to transform Greggs into a modern business, complete with its traditional roots, was on course.

Referring to its store drive, he told The Northern Echo: “We expect to grow by another 50 this year.

“As a business, we are about 70 per cent in shopping locations and 30 per cent (away from that).

“Our aim to get to about 60/40.

“The retail parks and service stations are good, open fertile ground for us, but we are also still looking at city centre and shopping locations because we need more presence.

“We are also busy moving shops, like in Newcastle’s Grainger Street, to make them bigger and better, which is important.”

Mr Whiteside, the former chief of Marks and Spencer’s food halls, also said Greggs was not looking to veer away from its established pastry lines, despite seeing substantial interest in its new products, such as coffee, which yields about £1m a week through sales.

He added: “We are working on new flavours to come into pasties and fillings for sandwiches, as well as a new salad range.

“We have got a healthy pipeline of new products and are looking forward to another year of continued growth as we continue this mission of ours.”