Forget salads, soups and sushi - British consumers still choose a sandwich (chicken salad is their favourite) for their lunchtime nosh. Last year, according to Mintel, UK consumers spent around £4bn on sarnies, up from just £3.3bn in 2002, and the market is expected to grow further - to reach £5bn by 2012.

The fact that Tesco is trialling Starbucks concessions in some of its stores is testament to the power of branded coffee. Tesco does everything from basic coffee to its Finest range yet it views Starbucks as the brand that will bring customers in.

Ask a consumer where they'd go to buy something for their car and most would probably say Halfords. The car accessory/bike chain is doing very well at the moment. However, according to Graham Tissiman, sales and marketing manager at the Convenience Distribution Group (CDG), forecourts have some major advantages over it. "First there's the forecourts' daily footfall, then there's the fact that most people entering a forecourt are in a car-orientated mood and retailers need to take advantage of this," he says.

We're all consumers so we all know how easy it is to get fed up with certain sandwiches or snacks. Sometimes we need a change. So imagine, for a moment, being a regular lunchtime shopper in your forecourt store. You visit two or three times a week to pick up a sandwich, some crisps and a drink. What sort of choice do you have? Has it been the same old selection of BLT, chicken salad or prawn on offer for the past few months or have there been any new additions? You can see where this is heading. The consumer gets cheesed off with cheese & pickle and heads elsewhere to spend his five quid or more on his lunch.

Inside the home, we Brits remain a nation of tea drinkers, but step outside the front door and premium coffee has become the hot drink of choice. As big brands such as Starbucks and Costa dominate the high-street coffee bars, discerning drivers are also increasingly on the look out for a high quality cup of coffee.

It’s hard to remember a time when you walked into a forecourt shop and there wasn’t a long line of confectionery stretching along one wall, from the entrance to the point of sale.

The mobile phones market is undergoing something of a revolution. Recent years have seen the emergence of wireless internet access and picture messaging, and now video messaging and the advent of 3G promise to keep people connected everywhere at all times. This spells great news for retailers because the more consumers use their phones – and these new services don’t come cheap – the more airtime they need.