Congratulations. How does it feel to win this award? Great, thanks. It is really good to win. It is the first time for this store in the nearly two years that I have been here.

What do you enjoy most about the work? I think the ever-changing atmosphere, the contact with the people and the great success we have had recently. If you can get all that, as we have had lately, it's a dream. It's great.

How long have you been working for Waitrose? I have worked for Waitrose for 20 years. I came to this store just after it was converted from Safeway two years ago. Before I came here I was a deputy manager in Birmingham. And before that I worked all over the country, including the West Country, Oxfordshire and London.

How was the integration process? It went quite well. We have approximately 130 people working here, most of whom joined Waitrose in the conversion from Safeway. We taught them about our approach, but it wasn't a one-way process at all, as we have learnt a lot from them as well.

What do you think customers find unique about this store? Waitrose and Harrogate have gone well together. Customers say they value the quality of the produce we sell and the quality of the service they get from the staff here. In addition, we do manage to fit quite a lot of ranges in here, even though at 20,000 sq ft the store is comparatively small in size.

What major changes have you implemented in the store recently? We have just converted to a brand new touch screen-style EPoS system called VBS. It is very good, certainly a great improvement on the checkout system we had before, which was fairly ­antiquated.

What other major changes do you have planned for the rest of the year? We do not have any specific initiatives planned for the rest of the year, but the improvement is ongoing. We will continue to focus on improving the flexibility of our team and the quality of our service.