Greggs has reported a big rise in sales at the start of this year and said its value food was proving popular during the “challenging” economic times.

The Newcastle-based food chain has released a trading update for the first 19 weeks of 2023 in which like-for-like sales rose 17.1% to £609m, though that rise was in part due to the Covid Omicron variant hitting revenues last year. Sales growth in recent weeks had ‘normalised’ to around 15%.

Greggs said it had opened 63 new shops during the period and was being boosted by sales of chicken goujons, pizza and plant-based food such as its vegan Mexican chicken-free bake. The company now has 2,365 shops around the UK including new openings at Canary Wharf in London, and at Glasgow and Cardiff airports. It now has four Greggs tasty cafe’s within Primark stores and is looking to add two more in Leeds and Liverpool, as well as looking to have more outlets in Tesco and Asda supermarkets.

The company is increasing capacity at its distribution centres in Birmingham and Amesbury to support more shop openings. It said that it was seeing ‘ongoing’ price increases for many of its supplies but had put in place measures to keep costs down on key charges such as energy bills and packaging.

The company’s chief executive Roisin Currie said the main priority for Greggs was to keep prices fixed to maintain its reputation for good value, which was helping it achieve a greater market share.

She said: “Protecting value for us is critical. We want to remain a value leader in the market so we’re working extremely hard to mitigate the impact of inflation as it comes through.”

In a statement to the Stock Exchange, the company said: “We have made a good start to the year with sales in line with plans and continued progress on our strategic initiatives. Looking ahead, whilst we expect the macro backdrop to continue to be challenging, we are confident in making further progress.

Although we expect to see ongoing material cost inflation, we have good forward cover on key commodities. Consumer disposable incomes are likely to stay under pressure, but we remain confident that our outstanding value proposition continues to be compelling.

Whilst uncertainties continue, the board’s expectations for the full year outcome are unchanged.”