Crunch time for Greggs in its bid to conquer Britain

The home of the sausage roll must learn the tough lessons of Starbucks before it also overreaches itself, says James Moore

- James Moore

As anyone who binged on Christmas chocolate as a child with predictably messy results can testify, you can have too much of a good thing.

This appears not to have occurred to high street baker Greggs, which now sells more than a million of its sausage rolls each day.

The company opened 226 new outlets last year, a number that falls to 145 net after factoring in closures and the relocation of existing stores - but it's still wildly impressive for our supposedly stagnant high streets.

A similar number of new stores is planned for this year. The chain has its roots in the north, so it has been targeting the south, as well as transport hubs -train stations, airports and the like.

But might its runaway popularity be a problem? The Greggs estate now amounts to more than 2,600 stores, some of which are within a very short walk of each other. This can create the sort of problems familiar to American owners of fast-food franchises, sold by the likes of McDonald's or Subway.

This bunching-up, sometimes referred to as the “Starbucks overreach”, can boost brand visibility and increase impulse buys. But when overdone, it risks cannibalising sales. In our bigger cities, you're never far from a frappuccino served in a cup with the mermaid trade mark - but who needs a high-street branch every 100 metres? It doesn't make business sense.

Just for fun, I checked out the number of Greggs outlets in the Norfolk and Suffolk market towns I yomped around as a cub reporter for the Eastern Daily Press using the company's website.