Jerry Tweney, owner of Budgens Prestbury Village Stores, in Cheltenham, says asparagus is so popular it is inspiring sales of all products associated with it.

He said: “We’ve just had the most enourmous success in the last six to eight weeks with asparagus. It’s grown 14 miles away from here. It comes into season in April and will soon be out of season and we’ve done an absolute tonne of it.

“We display it alongside hollandaise sauce, Yellow Tail Sauvignon Blanc, eggs and baking potatoes. This provides people with the full meal solution, they just might want to choose a meat to put with it. So having the asparagus leads to an uplift in sales of all the associated meal components.

“We get the asapragus as fresh as you can as I call up the farmer in the afternoon and he gets it to us the next afternoon. We keep it in a little bit of water just so it doesn’t dry out. We advertise it in our window and it generates a lot of interest especially as it’s not something this store would have done before I took over.

”We’re also doing great sales in our cider selection. We’ve got quite a few local ciders alongside all the usual suspects. We put them in our bay window too to inspire extra sales.

“Carbonated soft drinks have dropped right off since the sugar levy came into force. I think customers don’t understand which drinks are affected by the levy and which aren’t so they just avoid all carbonates.”

Successful NPD:

”We’ve just taken on Spot Loggins ice cream. It’s a local ice cream farm which has a fantastic range of flavours. We do particularly well with their small tubs - like the ones you get in cinemas. We sell 500ml tubs for £4.95 and 100ml tubs for £1.39. I’ve seen them in garden centres being sold at a much higher price than that. I’m an advocate for selling at the RRP and getting more people to try the product.”

What’s hot: Cider sales have taken off since the sun came out

What’s not: Carbonated drinks have dropped right off.