2007 and 2008 have seen a huge investment in excess of £3M on store refits to introduce our new model across our convenience stores.

This has also been run in-conjunction with Nisa as our main supplier, rolling out to stores and has meant that our managers have had to cope with not only a new store format but new supply format of the new ordering format through EDI ordering.

This has been a huge learning curve for everybody in the business, however if we get this right we should generate sales growth in excessive of 10% over the next 2 years.

As a consequence of this, there is no pressing need at present to acquire new stores. We are however conscious that we need to add better stores to the business as and when the opportunity arises.

What hurdles has the Group had to overcome in order to be the success it is today?

The major hurdle is trying to match the right people with the right job within the organisation. People make or break business and if you have the wrong people in your business they will break you.

Mills have adopted a policy of employing attitude and then teaching the skills needed through training and development. For many years we filled vacancies with CV rather than looking at the person and deciding whether they would fit into the team.

This new people strategy has made a big difference within our company and over the past 18 months we have moved forward in leaps and bounds in terms of the quality of people that we employ and the performance of people within the business.

Other hurdles include the "red tape" that the government has thrown at our industry over the past 10-15 years; changes in the supply chain on newspapers and magazines, deregulation of the newspapers and magazine market in 1994, the introduction of Tesco Express and others over the past few years into the convenience store sector.

The single biggest reason that the group has prospered to date is the quality of people employed by the business and the 'can do' attitude which means that we will not be defeated. We will not put obstacles in our way and we will find a way either through them or around them to achieve what we need to achieve.