A NORTH-EAST bakery empire says it will continue delivering new products for the lucrative takeaway market after a shift in focus lured back customers.

Greggs told The Northern Echo it is working on more food-on-the-go lines to build on rising sales.

The Newcastle-based pie and pasty maker previously revealed plans to step away from traditional bread making to concentrate on convenience products, such as fresh sandwiches, pizzas, soups and coffee, to take advantage of a £6bn market.

The company, founded in the 1930s by John Robson Gregg, has had to re-build its standing after issuing a profits warning last year, scaling back on high street store openings and revealing in-store bakery job cuts.

However, Roger Whiteside, chief executive, said it was now benefiting from stronger passing sales in the food-on-the go market, with full-year profits expected to be higher than expected.

He told The Northern Echo: “We’re very encouraged by the progress we’ve made and are aiming to build on that.

“The plan has not changed; we have got a pipeline of growth and development of products we are bringing to market, though I don’t want to give our rivals any help by revealing what they are.

“Customers are responding to improvements in our products and services and to the investment we are making in our existing shops, which we will carry on doing.”

Mr Whiteside, who took over as chief executive from Ken McMeikan, was speaking after the firm revealed a trading update for the 24 weeks to December 13.

The company, which has nearly 1,700 stores and employs about 20,000 staff, said like-for-like sales were 5.2 per cent higher in the period, with total sales growth of 3.6 per cent.

He said the results reflected the UK’s unseasonably milder autumn and winter, and also reiterated plans previously revealed to The Northern Echo about targeting Cornish pasty heartland.

Greggs has already successful expanded into partnerships with motorways service and forecourt operators Moto and Euro Garages.

He added: “It has been a good year for the weather; some of what we’ve had has not been normal for this time of the year in the UK and that has helped us.

“We normally expect one month to be difficult with snow, but we haven’t had that yet.

“As a company, we’ve been around for a long time, so we have a strong presence, but there are some areas where we don’t have high representation.

“The extreme South-West is one of those as there are not many Greggs in that area.

“We have most high streets covered and are doing well with our move to industrial parks, retail parks and motorway services because the transport side works very well with food-on-the-go.”