Jay Patel, manager of Ancoats General Store (Simply Fresh) in Manchester, has just about recovered from the extremely busy bank holiday and is enjoying particuarly strong sales across his craft ale range.

“The bank holiday weekend was really good. We worked out that we got a quarter extra in sales on each day. The weather brought in so many people, and soft drinks and alcohol were especially popular.

”Our craft ale is really going well and was particularly popular over the weekend. I couldn’t pick out one strongest seller as it’s the kind of range which people buy into like it’s a hobby, they like to buy one of everything, like collectors.”

”We sold loads of fresh meat for barbecues and packs of ice, plus loads of crisps and snacks and ice creams.”

Jay has also just got Woodall’s salami snack boxes in store which he expects will be very popular with his demographic of shoppers.

”This is a local product and it looks like very high quality meat. This is definitely on trend for our shoppers as they are very much looking for high quality ingredients and are happy to pay a premium for that. They also do a gin flavoured salami which I think people will find interesting.”