Greggs has postponed plans to reopen some of its stores next week amid fears that it could spark crowds at the chain’s outlets.

The food-to-go specialist said earlier this week that it wanted to reopen 20 shops in the Newcastle area on a trial basis from Monday, just over a month after it shuttered its entire 2,050-store network.

Greggs said the test would allow it to see if it could operate shops with social distancing measures in place.

But the business has rowed back on those plans following “significant interest” in the trial. Instead, it will operate the pilot behind closed doors, similar to the tests carried out by food-to-go rival McDonald’s.

A Greggs spokesman said: “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.

“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 to reopen 700 of its shops if the trial was a success. Working on the basis that schools would reopen on June 1, the retailer had planned to start opening for business again from June 8.

The final phase of its initial strategy was to reopen all shops, with new operational and social distancing measures, by July 1.

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