High street baking giant Greggs is set to reopen 800 of its stores for takeaway later this week, as it stalls on new store openings and discusses moves to monthly rent payments.

Greggs said it planned to reopen 800 shops on Thursday, June 18, with “new procedures and equipment” in place to protect staff and customers, following successful trials of new social distancing and hygiene measures in a small number of stores in May.

The baking chain said that due to coronavirus it had “temporarily suspended our new shop opening programme”, accelerated the rollout of its delivery and click-and-collect services and was in discussion with landlords over rent reductions.

Having made its full quarterly rent payments in March, Greggs said it planned to move to monthly rent payments from June.

Greggs said that of the 800 stores reopening on Thursday, 19 would have both delivery and click-and-collect transactions available, and it would “extend these services to further catchments as soon as possible”.

The convenience food retailer also said that during lockdown it had “continued with the investment in our new robotic frozen logistics facility in the North East”.

Chief executive Roger Whiteside said: “Looking forward, although great uncertainty remains, we are excited to be resuming our service for many customers this week.

“We are confident of our ability to adapt to market conditions in the short term while continuing to invest in the long-term growth of our business. I want to thank all of our 25,000 colleagues for their support in getting us to this point.”

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