Summit22

Exploring the future of convenience

The Association of Convenience Stores’ biggest event of the year saw the launch of this year’s Raj Aggarwal Trophy, which celebrates exceptional community retailing.

Retailers, suppliers and industry experts this week met at ACS Summit22, in Birmingham, to discuss what’s happening in the sector and what might happen in the future. Speakers included Mike Hollis, Retail Director at Bestway Retail, Mandeep Singh of Premier Sheffield, and Corinna Trainor from Trainor Bros Spar.

Spar UK boss and chair of the ACS board, Louise Hoste, also launched the Raj Aggarwal Trophy for 2022 – a trophy launched in the memory of independent retailer Raj Aggarwal – which celebrates exceptional community retailing. Entries for the award are now open.

ACS Summit22 also hosted two masterclasses exploring high priority issues affecting the convenience sector: preventing underage sales and the upcoming high fat, salt and sugar regulations. Recordings will be available for members shortly via the Member Portal.

ACS Chief Executive and conference chair, James Lowman, said: “Summit22 is our first live face-to-face major conference since April 2019, and we are delighted to have been able to bring together people from across our industry to discuss and explore where our sector is now and what the future might look like for convenience stores.

“I would like to thank each and every person who took the time to attend Summit22 to be a part of the discussion, our speakers for providing their fascinating insights and the sponsors of this year’s conference.”

Throughout the conference, there was a keen focus on the importance of well-being.

This was explored through the expertise of Music Psychotherapist Rebekah Duncalfe, of Meraki Creative Therapies, and looked at what wellbeing means, how retailers can support the wellbeing of others, and how this applies to the convenience sector.