Greggs is set to create 500 news jobs after announcing plans to open 41 new branches by the end of the year.
The news was announced as the company revealed £55.5m in pre-tax profits for the year.
The high street bakery reported a £65.2m loss for the 26 weeks up to July 3 at the same point last year.
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After opening 48 new stores in the beginning of 2021, Greggs announced plans to open up 100 in total by the end of 2021 creating the new jobs.
They did announce 11 branches were also shut down for good.
Seventy per cent of openings in the first half were in car-accessed locations such as roadsides, petrol stations, retail parks and supermarkets.
837 Greggs stores also offer home-delivery.
Roger Whiteside, chief executive of Greggs, said: "Greggs once again showed its resilience in a challenging first half, emerging from the lockdown months in a strong position and rebuilding sales as social restrictions were progressively relaxed.
"We continue to make good progress with our strategic priorities, growing the shop estate and investing in our digital capabilities to compete in all channels and parts of our market.
"Whilst there continue to be general uncertainties in the market, given our recent performance we now expect full-year profit to be slightly ahead of our previous expectation."
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