A Nisa forecourt retailer boosted footfall with a mini food fair, timed to coincide with the 80th anniversary Guildford Cricket Festival in Surrey last week.

The BP Falcon Garage in Guildford is situated across the road from Surrey County Cricket Club, and decided to host its own event to complement the cricket.

Business development manager Gary Kemp said: “This was our inaugural speciality and fine food festival and we are certainly planning to do it again.

“We’re very busy at this time of year with up to 5,000 spectators attending the cricket on each of the four days of the event, so we always see lots of extra customers.

“This year we thought we’d host our own event so people going to the cricket as well as our regular customers, had something else to get excited about and talk about.”

The retailer invited three new suppliers to showcase their products to customers and erected marquees on the forecourt which allowed food and drinks to be displayed and sampled. Suppliers also had the opportunity to sell their products directly to shoppers from their stalls.

The Protein Ball Company, Zeo Drinks and I Love Snacks each hosted their own stalls and showed off lines which are all now available to buy in the forecourt store. And the garage also had a stall with big bag snacks and seasonal drinks on show.

“It was really successful,” said Gary. “It brought the store to life and got people talking and interested. We’re now looking to host another event and have more sampling and giveaways.”