Awards profile – Best New Store Award

Winner: Bourtreehill Supermarket, Irvine Ayrshire Sponsored by: Barr Soft Drinks
The main bakery fixture at Spar, Hillfoot Road in Ayr takes a prime position in Aisle 1 of the store. Wrapped bread and loose rolls take up the first section of the fixture. As consumers make their way down the aisle they pass morning goods in the second fixture section. The substantial local popularity of cake means those products take a large space in the third segment. To make way for the cakes, Spar-branded part-baked bread and world breads are merchandised in a free-standing display unit at the start of the fixture, and the products do well there. The main fixture ends with bake-off products.

Award profile – Bread and Bakery of the Year Award 2014

Winner: Spar, Hillfoot Road, Ayr Bread and Bakery of the Year Award 2014 – in association with Kingsmill. Interview with Kevin Rarity, store manager, above left,...

A sweet success

Awards profile - Confectionery Retailer of the Year THE first thing you see when you go through the door into Spar, Market Street, Forfar is...

New directions

We ask some of Scotland’s young c-store retailers about their businesses and the key issues of the day. We’re looking for new generation retailers and...
Mackies at Taypack crisps are made at a fourth-generation farm in Perthshire.

Meet the Maker: Mackies at Taypack

Melissa Hack, national account manager, talks crisps, provenance and the joys of pickled onion
Is sugar next in line to be given public-enemy stauts by health activists and lobbyists? The white stuff has featured in a number of statements from a variety of organisations in recent weeks. But director of the Scottish Food and Drink Federation Colette Backwell reckons the media heat and light is unhelpful while food producers and others await the release in the summer of in-depth scientific analysis of the effects on diet of sugar and other carbohydrates.

Wait for the facts on sugar

THE launch of the new health non-governmental organisation Action on Sugar in January sparked a media furore around sugars which continues to dominate headlines...

Awards profile – confectionery retailer of the year

WHEN Mohammed Asif opened his Spar convenience store in Forfar in May 2011, on the site of a former kitchen showroom that had been...

New to the village

Spar Woodilee is the first convenience store to open its doors in the development of Woodilee Village in Lenzie. For owner Zahid Farooq, it...

Leading the way in quaff sales – Maxwell’s Clarkston

THE doors may only have opened in August of last year, but Maxwell’s Clarkston has already established itself as a veritable Aladdin’s cave of...
Headshot of Amanda Brown and screenshot of the knowledge bank website

Banking on category data

SCOTTISH food and drink brands are performing well, but they could be doing even better according to Amanda Brown, project director at The Knowledge Bank.

Barry Hanif, independent store, Day-Today and Nisa

Barry Hanif has been a full-time retailer for three years and is the owner of three stores: an independent in Falkirk; a Day-Today in...

Speaking up for forecourt retailers

GORDON Balmer, the new chief executive of the Petrol Retailers Association, has taken charge of the organisation at a turbulent time.

Collaborate and we’ll innovate

Food manufacturers and others need to work together to find solutions for a new era’s challenges says Colette Backwell, director of the Scottish Food...

New directions

Kilwinning retailer Sandeep Dhaliwal has been running the family business for three years.  His fresh ideas and a major refurbishment have yielded great results. We...
Damian Guha, Mars Petcare UK,

New chief moves in at Mars Petcare

DAMIAN Guha has returned to Mars as managing director for Mars Petcare UK. He had a three-year break at Marks & Spencer, where...

Minimum hits £6.70

Government agrees 3% increase in NMW from October THE UK’s minimum wage will rise by 3% to £6.70 an hour, for the full adult rate,...