Valerie Aston, director of Proudfoots stores in Newby, Eastfield, Seamer, Scarborough, has been busy celebrating Yorkshire Day with a local supplier sampling event at her Newby store.

”Every year, on August 1st, we celebrate Yorkshire Day by asking all the local Yorkshire producers to come to the store and showcase their products at their own stall within the store. We had about 20 that came along and they turned the store into a small market for the day. It’s always a great event and everyone benefits from it.

“Other than that event, we’ve been extremely busy with soft drinks, ice creams and BBQ foods thanks to the excellent weather. We’ve even struggled to keep supply levels up in soft drinks, especially those most popular drinks like the Pepsi, Coca-Cola and our own-brand water.

“All our categories are in growth at the moment which is excellent.”

Star performer: “I’d have to say the soft drinks section is really popular at the moment, across the whole range.”

Successful NPD:

“We’ve also just brought in five new Cook freezers which have been incredibly popular. They’ve brought new customers into the store, we’ve seen excellent sales of the Cook products, plus we’ve seen increased sales across the frozen range. In Scarborough there aren’t many stores that offer the product so as soon as we got it in store people were coming in to get it and it created a real talking point.”

Cook frozen hand prepared meal range aims to offer shoppers ready meals which look and taste homemade, with high quality ingredients. The range includes meals for one, two or crowds as well as special dishes for the calorie conscious, for children, seniors, or those following free-from diets.