Greggs in Northbrook Street, Newbury, closes 'temporarily'

The Greggs branch in Northbrook Street – crowned the ‘Best in the UK’ in February 2020 – has been forced to close temporarily due to ‘operational’ reasons.

The store shut its doors for the foreseeable future over the weekend, with its staff redeployed to the larger London Road branch.

It’s not clear when the branch – which closed for a week in May 2019 to undergo refurbishment – will reopen, or if there have been any redundancies.

A spokesperson for the pastry and sausage roll purveyor said: “I can confirm it will temporarily close due to ‘operational’ reasons and colleagues will be redeployed.

“We hope to reopen soon.”

The branch beat more than 2,000 other Greggs shops to scoop the best Greggs in the country last year as it was praised for its all-round performance, including demonstrating outstanding customer service, great standards, excellent shop sales and great teamwork.

Shops were ranked on a monthly basis against several key performance criteria, and those entering the final rounds of the competition received a series of unannounced visits by Greggs’ regional management teams to assess standards, with CEO Roger Whiteside and people and retail director Roisin Currie making the final judgement.

Nationally, Greggs has had a tough time since the beginning of the pandemic.

In March this year, it announced that it had sunk to its first loss in 36 years, revealing a pre-tax loss of £13.7m in 2020, compared with a £108.3m profit a year earlier.

The figures for 2021 will be announced next year.