How is the unseasonal weather affecting trade? Well, there isn’t a lot of call for BBQ! And it is changing what people are buying – but it is actually doing us a favour. We have a lot of local competition – we are opposite a large and well-run Tesco, but we have a large covered car park and that makes a lot of difference when the weather is like this. 

Our shopper mentioned how much she enjoyed your in-store café. Is this helping with business? Yes, we are very close to the local schools and it is quite popular for people doing the school run. We have a high turnover of customers so that gives us the opportunity to keep our café offering fresh. And we have a nice patio area for customers to sit outside. It overlooks some fountains, which generates a really pleasant atmosphere, although it’s obviously not seeing many customers with the weather like it is! 

How is the new Love Life range selling? Very well. It is difficult to pin it down because it is cross-category, but we were given some ambitious allocations to stock across the range and it hasn’t affected our wastage, so that suggests that it is selling pretty well. Essentials was really popular when we launched that, and the early indications are this will be equally as successful. 

What else is selling well? We are a Waitrose food and home store – one of five in the country – so we do a lot of home goods. TV’s are our big ticket sellers, Panasonic go really well. And we are selling a lot of 3D televisions. Samsung ones are very popular. They go for around £899, but you have to buy the glasses separately. 

What is your favourite thing about the store? I like our demo studio – we have people in there watching chefs who will cook the recipes on our Delia recipe cards, that sort of thing. And we show a lot of kids around, they will have a play and learn things like how yeast reacts with food. In a few weeks, we are having some kids from Chernobyl coming over to play in the studio. We will do some British food cooking with them in the studio. We were asked to do it by a charity, and it’s about giving the kids a bit of a break and showing them what happens in this country. 

What do you like about working for Waitrose? I like the fact that it isn’t a plc, and that we can think long-term and look after the partners who work for the business. We look after them and by doing so they enjoy working for the business more. It makes it a better environment for us all to work in. 

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