According to Wall's Ice Cream, 60% of value sales of ice cream in forecourts come from chocolate snacks compared to 50% in other impulse channels. It seems whether it's white van man or Mr Mondeo the sales rep, they like their choccie even in the summer, when it has to be delivered in frozen form. That means you should be stocked up with Magnums and Mars ice creams.

In ice cream companies up and down the country, many fingers are crossed and there's lots of touching of wood. The reason? Well, as the firm's unveil their 2009 line-ups, they're hoping that the sun shines and people come out in force to buy their ice creams. After two lacklustre summers, they're hoping it will be a case of third time lucky.

For most consumers, summer is the season for ice cream, and David Taylor, sales and marketing director at Frederick's Dairies, reckons it's more about sunshine than temperature. "My theory - though it's not a scientific one - is that more than three days of constant sunshine means sales of ice creams will rise."

It's almost Bank Holiday season and that's when sales of ice cream traditionally start to increase, especially if the weather's good.

With Easter said to mark the start of the ice cream season, forecourt retailers should already be making sure their freezers are fully stocked and looking spick and span. In this trading sector children aren't the main customers so forecourts can benefit from the popularity of higher-margin premium products that are specifically aimed at adults.

If you’re selling ice cream in your forecourt shop then you need to make sure people know about it. That’s the message from Andrea Taylor, trade relations manager at Masterfoods. “Consumers might not expect to find ice cream in a forecourt store so retailers need to use point of sale material to draw people in. And inside the store, ice cream freezers need to be placed in high traffic flow areas so people are queuing against the freezer and can see what’s inside – then they’ll be tempted to buy.”

Frozen food shoppers spend twice as long in store, and 62 per cent more than the average convenience customer, according to Harris International Marketing’s Convenience Tracking Programme, so it’s a category not to be ignored.