Winner of New Store of the Year, Spar Nafferton in the East Riding of Yorkshire opened on 4 June 2024 at a cost of £2.8m, with a build time of nine months.
Located in a rural location, the store has a captive village audience, along with several neighbouring villages and hamlets surrounding Nafferton that the store draws trade from, as well as considerable passing trade to and from the Yorkshire coast.
Highlights of the store features include a Graham Eyes butchers, a Clayton Park deli selling hot and cold food, and a Cheeky Coffee machine.
Fresh produce is also available to buy loose in the store. Local produce includes milk from St Quintin’s Creamery which is just a few minutes’ drive away, and Wold Top beers from nearby Wold Newton – Spar Nafferton being the closest store geographically to sell the brewery’s products.
The store has exceeded its average weekly sales target, and during the months of June, July and August 2025 compared to the same time period in 2024, it recorded 21.7% growth in sales. On the Graham Eyes butchers’ counter, seasonal offers and new products keep the range interesting and sales are showing incremental increases with sales anywhere between £5,500 and £6,000 weekly. Deli sales have also improved to anywhere between £7,500 and £7,800 a week consistently.
In terms of innovation, electronic shelf edge labels throughout the store to give a clear and bright displays to customers, while saving hours of pricing changeovers for staff. Investment has been made into Quail headsets to enable quick communication between retail colleagues, and Workcloud Task Management handsets for store tasks have saved on average eight hours each week. Facewatch technology has been introduced into the store to improve staff safety, and they have invested in the VARS forecourt system to tackle forecourt drive offs. Inside the store, there have been minor adjustments to the range as time has progressed, and this has delivered positive results.
As the store’s butchers’ counter is so popular, the range of fresh meats in the chillers have been reduced, replaced instead with meal solutions and ready meals enabling customers a greater range to choose from for ‘tonight’s tea’.
The store’s offer has been communicated to the community through local PR pre- and post-launch, advertising campaigns with the Driffield and Wolds Weekly newspaper and Great Driffield Radio, targeted digital advertising through Google, Meta and Spotify, and two postcode mail drops via Royal Mail – one at launch and the second ahead of activity for the store’s first birthday. Also prior to launching, the area manager and store manager walked around the village to deliver leaflets with opening offers, and a cheese and wine night was held for villagers so they could have a sneak peek of their new Spar store.
This helped foster a fantastic relationship with the local community. As the store launched on the 80th anniversary of D-Day, a two-minutes silence on the car park together with customers was also well-received. Vice Chairman of East Riding of Yorkshire Council Cllr Liam Dealtry cut the ribbon to open the store with Chair of Nafferton Parish Council Cllr Cathy Milan. Other community engagement ahead of launch included sponsorship of Nafferton Youth Football Club’s U13 team, funding camping and sports equipment for Nafferton Scouts, and sponsorship of Nafferton Rec Club’s popular beer festival.
In addition, Spar paid for the village’s 15ft Christmas tree, supporting the village’s Christmas lights switch on. Nearby Burton Agnes Primary School received a Spar Sports Day Kit and Nafferton Pantomime Society received a contribution to their 2025 panto production.
Since opening, there has also been continuous contact with Nafferton Primary School. Company stores director Fiona Drummond visited the school to deliver a talk before the store opened and Spar has contributed to the building of the school’s pond. In return, the school choir have sung twice in-store to packed-out audiences. The local community has already warmed to the new store, with customer feedback describing it as “perfect”, “impressive” and having an “excellent fresh food range”.
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