Sid Sidhu, owner of Kenilworth Budgens, in Warwickshire, has had his new coffee bar area up and running in his store for the last three weeks and this has meant a lot of new shoppers have come in to try his coffee-to-go and new scoop ice cream. 

”Coffee-to-go sales have gone through the roof - probably about 40% - since we’ve brought in the new seating area. We’ve also found that people are buying more newspapers too as they want something to read while they have their drink.

“We’ve got a gelato scoop ice cream counter alongside our slush and our new frappuccino machine. We’ve wanted to sell ice cream to go for a long time and I’ve been looking into the different options. Eventually I decided scoop gelato involves a lower outlay and it allows me to sell at a high value price point of £1 per cone or £1.50 per tub.

“Our new Snowshock Frappino machine is really popular. We sell it with a choice of syrups; vanilla, caramel and chocolate are the most popular. We can also add fresh cream on top. We sell these in a large cup for £2 or with the syrup and cream for £2.50.

“We’ve even seen an increase in sales in our frozen category as we brought in a new three door freezer from General Mills to replace our three separate freezers which sat adjacent to each other. It’s just made the category harder for the shopper to miss.”

What’s hot: Alcohol and BBQ products are flying out 

What’s not: Health and beauty isn’t such a fast seller