Britain’s biggest bakery chain, Greggs, has been hit by technical problems with payments that forced some stores to close temporarily.

Greggs said it had experienced issues accepting payments in some outlets on Wednesday, but by mid-morning the problems had been fixed.

“We have now resolved the technical issue that affected tills in some of our shops earlier this morning,” a spokesperson said. “The majority of shops affected are now able to take card and cash payments again and we expect the issue to be fully resolved shortly. We apologise for the inconvenience this may have caused to our customers.”

Stores in cities including London, Manchester, Cardiff and Glasgow were affected by the IT problems, which forced some shops to put up temporary “closed” notices on their doors. Other stores asked customers to place orders outside via the Greggs mobile app, before food could be handed to them.

One customer said on X that their local branch was closed, posting a picture of a notice that read: “Shop will open late due to technical issues. You can order through click and collect or Uber Eats. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.”

Another posted on the platform: “Greggs this morning cash only! Sitting here with my coffee watching almost everyone have to walk out.”

Greggs, famed for its meat and vegan sausage rolls, has more than 2,450 bakeries across the UK.

It is the latest retailer to experience technical problems. McDonald’s restaurants in several countries including the UK, Japan and Australia were hit by a “technology outage” on Friday, which the fast food chain said had not been caused by a cybersecurity attack.

Sainsbury’s experienced a “technical issue” over the weekend that affected card payments in stores and led to the cancellation of online grocery deliveries. Its chief executive, Simon Roberts, wrote to customers on Sunday afternoon to apologise, and said all affected systems were back online.

The supermarket chain was unable to fulfil the “vast majority” of its online orders after an overnight software update led to problems that affected some stores, grocery online services and its ability to contact customers.

Tesco also experienced technical problems and had to cancel some home delivery orders on Saturday.

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