Greggs boss Whiteside refuses to rule out price rises as inflation deepens
By Hugh Radojev2022-03-08T17:13:00
Greggs boss Roger Whiteside has said it would be “irresponsible” to rule out further price rises on products and warned inflation could hit 6% or 7% this year as ingredients and energy prices skyrocket.
Whiteside said that Greggs wouldn’t increase prices across the board “until the market moves”, but said the food-to-go specialist had expected inflation to hit 5% this year. However, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he said Greggs was now anticipating inflation hitting as much as 7% this year.
“There’s no specific product or ingredient where we expect price rises. They’re all going up, it’s across the board. We only ever move prices a few pence at a time each time we have to move prices, so we certainly wouldn’t jeopardise our position as price leader in the markets in which we compete.
“So, depending on how the market reacts, you might see that you might see that we want to protect prices at one end of the market where we can see competition is more intense. But when prices rise more aggressively in other parts of the market, those are the sort of judgments we need to make on a product by product basis.”