Kishor Patel, who owns Nisa Local stores in Bedfordshire, enjoyed record sales at all three of his stores last week, thanks to the weather and the World Cup.

He said: ”We had a record week at all three stores last week. The weather is helping tremendously plus we had the feel good factor of England reaching the semi-finals.

”We were very busy in the run-up to their last game and there was a lot of conversation going on between staff and customers. It’s good to have that safe topic of conversation that everyone is happy to talk about. It provides the staff with an opportunity to build their confidence and speak to customers.”

Kishor says the Co-op products newly available to him have been a real hit.

”The new Co-op products are going really well, such as their burgers, biscuits and pizzas. I would actually like to have a conversation with Nisa to discuss rebranding one of the stores to Co-op.”