Greggs is trying to take on Burger King and McDonald’s with its new hot food menu

HIGH street bakery chain Greggs is breaking into the dinner scene with new dishes added to a new evening menu.

Famous for it's steakbakes and sausage rolls, Greggs now wants to feed post-6pm diners a menu of hot food including chicken goujons, potato wedges and pasta dishes.

The Newcastle based bakery already runs a popular breakfast menu and tasty lunch dishes, but normally they shut up shop before the dinner time rush.

Now, in a bid to compete with fast food giants like McDonald's and Burger King, Greggs has been trialling the hot dishes in 100 of its restaurants in hot spots like Newcastle and London.

The Greggs chief executive, Roger Whiteside, told that he hopes the bakery chain to become a destination for evening meals too.

He explained: "We are testing a menu that will appeal in the evening, which is the part of the day when Greggs doesn’t trade."

"Hot food is the last of the big food trends we have chosen to pursue,” he said.

"We need to find out if we can we sell hot food at the times we are already open."

The bakery has already installed hot food cabinets in 100 stores and if the menu goes down well with customers, then stores nationwide could stay open for longer to catch the dinnertime rush.

Greggs has already introduced hot breakfast food for the early risers, including porridge, bacon rolls and almond croissants.

On it's lunch menu it has started selling toasties and brought in the hot Katsu chicken wraps.

The sausage roll giant announced plans to roll out 130 new shops this year, potentially creating more than 1,500 jobs. We don't know exactly where those stores will be yet.

The announcement comes off the back of a year of great sales, where they said like for like sales rose by 3.7 per cent last year.

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