Greggs has launched its first Eco Drive-Thru at Easton Lane, Winchester, testing new sustainability initiatives designed to reduce the environmental impact of its operations.
The drive-thru builds on the success of the sausage roll maker’s first Eco-Shop, which opened in Northampton in 2022.
That concept introduced features such as knee-operated sinks and energy-efficient ovens. Since then, elements of the Eco-Shop have been rolled out across more than 700 stores — representing 27% of Greggs’ estate — a year ahead of the company’s original 2025 target.
Greggs said its Winchester site includes several eco-friendly features such as sun tubes to bring natural light into the store, low energy lighting with daylight harvesting technology, solar panels powering in-store digital signage, and a rainwater harvesting unit with a 3,000-litre capacity expected to reduce water usage by around 13%.
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Additional measures include a heat pump air conditioning system and a heat recovery system that repurposes warm air from refrigeration to heat the store, supporting Greggs’ wider net zero carbon goals.
Greggs property director Tony Rowson said: “We’re so excited to have launched our first ever Eco Drive-Thru. As a leader in our sector, we take our responsibility to do right by the planet and communities we operate in seriously, and we do all that we can to make changes for the better.
“I’m proud of what we’ve achieved with our first Eco-Shop, ‘our shop of the future’, which means we can now test further materials and initiatives in this new unit, bringing us another step closer to reaching our Net Zero carbon objective.”
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