Greggs has opened a new type of shop that’s designed to bring its most popular products to even more people in busy locations. The new format is called Bitesize Greggs and is being trialled in selected places where space is tight but footfall is high. The first of these new shops has opened at Sevenoaks Railway Station, creating 10 jobs and serving customers seven days a week.
Greggs says it wants to test how the smaller format performs in places where traditional shops wouldn’t usually fit. The new layout will offer a limited selection of best-selling items at the same prices as regular Greggs stores. These include classics like the sausage roll, steak bake, sweet treats, and Fairtrade hot drinks.
Tony Rowson, Greggs’ property director, said: “We’re excited to announce the launch of our ‘Bitesize Greggs’ concept.
“This small but mighty new format will allow us to reach more customers on the go from compact units, whilst still offering a selection of our best-selling products.
“The rollout of ‘Bitesize Greggs’, initially on a trial basis, will support our broader estate growth plans.”
Greggs said the next two shops of this kind will open in December, with Dartford Station in Kent and Cheshire Oaks both confirmed as the next locations. More may follow depending on how well the format performs.
The company said the smaller shops will be rolled out alongside its usual larger stores. On average, Greggs is opening four new full-size locations each week.
The news comes just months after the bakery chain launched its first-ever Eco Drive-Thru at Easton Lane in Winchester.
That site was designed to test out energy-saving and sustainable features, including solar panels, rainwater harvesting, daylight sensors, and a heat pump system.
The Winchester unit builds on the success of Greggs’ first Eco-Shop in Northampton, which opened in 2022 and served as a test bed for greener materials and technologies.
By the end of 2024, more than 700 shops, around 27% of Greggs’ estate, had already incorporated features from that initial eco site.
Speaking at the time, Mr Rowson said: “We’re so excited to have launched our first ever Eco Drive-Thru.
“As a leader in our sector, we take our responsibility to do right by the planet and communities we operate in seriously, and we do all that we can to make changes for the better.
“I’m proud of what we’ve achieved with our first Eco-Shop, ‘our shop of the future’, which means we can now test further materials and initiatives in this new unit, bringing us another step closer to reaching our Net Zero carbon objective.”
