Greggs, Britain’s largest bakery chain, has been forced to close stores after IT issues crippled its card payments system.

Greggs York

Greggs has closed some of its stores, with the remainder taking cash-only payments. Stores in cities around the UK, including London, Manchester, Cardiff and Glasgow, have all reported issues.

Signs reading “Oh Crumbs!” have appeared in the windows of affected stores across the UK, alongside statements apologising to customers for the issues affecting tills.

In a statement from Greggs said: “We are currently experiencing issues accepting payments in our shops.” It added: “We are working to resolve this as soon as possible.”

The high street baker has over 2,450 shops across the UK. It is currently unclear how many stores have been affected by the issue.

The news follows a weekend of IT chaos in major supermarkets and convenience food outlets across the UK and around the world.

Last Friday, McDonald’s restaurants in several countries, including the UK, Japan and Australia, were hit by a “technology outage”.

On Saturday, both Sainsbury’s and Tesco were affected by separate tech issues which hampered the fulfilment of online grocery deliveries.

The issues were so pronounced at Sainsbury’s that chief executive Simon Roberts was forced to write to customers on Sunday to apologise.