Greggs puts brakes on reopening 20 shops amid social distancing concerns
Greggs says it will carry out trials behind closed doors before reopening
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Your support makes all the difference.Popular bakery chain Greggs has delayed reopening 20 shops next week over fears large crowds could gather and spread the virus.
Greggs, which has more than 2,000 sites across the UK, closed its doors on 24 March after Boris Johnson introduced a nationwide lockdown.
The prime minister said that pubs and restaurants could stay open for delivery only, but Greggs decided to shut its doors.
On Monday the group, which serves savoury products including vegan sausage rolls and sandwiches, announced that it was to trial reopening 20 sites in Newcastle from 4 May.
“We want to play our part in getting the nation back up and running again,” a spokesperson said.
“So we are planning to conduct a limited trial with volunteers to explore how we can reopen our shops with new measures in place that will keep our colleagues and customers as safe as we can when we reopen at scale.”
But executives at the bakery firm have now put the brakes on reopening shops, citing social distancing concerns.
“Due to significant interest in our 20-shop trial, and the risk that excessive numbers of customers may plan to visit Greggs, we will now initially operate these trials behind closed doors in order to effectively test our new operational safety measures,” a spokesperson said on Thursday.
“We will continue to review this and will invite walk-in customers into our shops only when we can be confident of doing so in the controlled manner we intended.”
Greggs had hoped that if feedback was positive from the trial it could move to phase two, with 700 shops reopening next month.
It had cautioned that phase two would only be possible if the government has taken a first step in relaxing the lockdown, which could involve reopening schools, allowing more people to return to work.
Greggs’ working assumption was that schools would reopen on 1 June, allowing the phase two shops to reopen on 8 June.
The final phase of its initial plan was to open all shops with new operational measures in place by 1 July, which is when the government’s job retention furlough scheme is currently scheduled to end.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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