Sid Ali, a Nisa retailer in Aberdeenshire, says the soft drinks market is booming thanks, in part, to popular NPD.

“Soft drinks is really booming at the moment,” says Sid.

“There’s a lot of NPD in that category and Robinsons Refresh’d is a particularly popular new product on the market. It has really attractive packaging and it’s much healthier than some of the other drinks like this and healthier drinks is where the market seems to be going.”

One slower category for Sid has been his off-licence, although speciality gins are still popular with his shoppers.

”The new drink-driving laws in Scotland have really put a dampner on mid-week drinking, and too right. Plus when people want a cheaper drink they will go to Aldi and Lidl and such-like.

“Instead of trying to compete with discounters, we sell lots of specialist brands and more premium bottles which provide a much higher margin. We have about 35 flavours of gin now!”

Another popular range of products in Sid’s store is his locally sourced hanging bag sweets called Pounders.

”We’ve allocated more space to the hanging bag sweets. They now have a whole bay and that’s 60 different flavours! They look great and are very eye catching in bright yellow bags.”