Jag Brar, who owns a Londis in Cricklade, Wiltshire, has just installed a new Sibylla hot dog food-to-go unit and he has high hopes based on how attractive the unit and products look.

”I thought why not give it a go, it’s a real nice looking machine and it’s already seen steady sales. The machine does take up quite a bit of space but it makes a great impact and catches the shopper’s eye very well.

“I don’t eat meat so haven’t tried the products but even I am tempted by the look of them!”

He adds that the cold weather is bringing shoppers in for coffee and other hot food to go.

”The temperature has dropped now and people are coming in to buy a lot of coffee from our Jack Beans machine.

“Other hot food-to-go items are the usual sausage rolls and bakes.”

Jag says Halloween definitely did it’s job in ramping up footfall as he sold out of his multipacks of Haribo on the day and managed to sell pumpkins for the first time - 60 of them.

”It was a bit of a risk getting in two big cages full of pumpkins but I think this was the best way to do it. We put them outside the store from two weeks before Halloween so people knew they could come here to buy theirs. 

“I was really concerned as to what on earth we would do with all these pumpkins if they didn’t sell but we were only left with four in the end!”