Simon Lee, store manager at Co-op Welcome Marchwood, Hampshire, says the flavour twists on popular confectionery lines have been popular with his shoppers.

“The new Haribo Ice Cream and Sorbet flavours are going well and the new tangy wine gums are also popular. There’s always NPD within the confectionery aisle and they often are quite popular.”

Alcohol has also been selling brilliantly during the hot weather spells and when the sun goes in Simon is seeing good sales of confectionery, local and chilled products.

“We’ve seen great sales coming from our Montezuma’s brand chocolate which is a fairly local company and it’s a very premium product. We must have about 22 different SKUs of that with flavours ranging from apple crumble, to etonmess to chilli and lime. The feedback we’ve had is people will travel up to 15 miles to the store just to get some.

”I would say it’s definitely worth selling these sorts of specialist and more local brands as people will go out of their way to come to your store to buy it.

“Something else we are doing a lot more of at the moment are the salad pots and healthy salad pots alongside our sandwiches. We now have a wide range of salads and cold pastas with several vegetarian options. They’ve been very popular and certainly people seem to be picking those up over the sausage rolls and pork pies.”

What’s hot: Confectionery, snacks and fresh food are all going well

What’s not: Pre-packed cakes and cake bars aren’t so popular.