Greggs helped by strong breakfast sales

Strong demand for its breakfast range has helped Greggs report a small rise in sales, despite "an increasingly challenging trading environment".

The UK's largest bakery chain said like-for-like sales - which excludes new store openings - for its third quarter ending 2 October rose 0.2%.

Greggs said its breakfast bacon roll was now its best-selling sandwich.

It is now adding more breakfast products, including croissants and pains au chocolat.

The 0.2% rise in Greggs' sales for the third quarter was down from the 0.7% growth seen in the first half of its financial year.

Greggs chief executive Ken McMeikan said: "As we expected, the trading environment has been tough and is likely to remain so, with consumer spending continuing to be constrained and inflationary pressures building for next year.

"We anticipate that like-for-like sales in the final quarter will be broadly flat and therefore marginally positive over the year as a whole."

He added that the company was keeping a "very tight focus" on costs.

Greggs currently operates 1,451 shops. It said that its expansion programme was on track, having opened a net 32 new shops in the year to date.