Maximise Summer Profits: The Best-Selling Products Needed in 2025

Discover the products driving summer sales, plus tips on maximising profits for your store!
At Epicurium, we’ve analysed last summer’s top-performing products to help you maximise sales in 2025. Here’s what we found.
Biggest summer snacks growth
Graze, Forest Feast, Love Corn and Waf*Fulls are just some of the lines that experienced ordering hikes last summer.
Love Corn is the biggest seller out of these four for Jack Matthews, owner of Bradley’s Supermarket in Quorn, Leicestershire.
“We recently shuffled our protein products and healthier lines, including Love Corn, and have moved them towards the till. Sales increased almost straight away,” he says.
“Typically, these are bought by younger adults who are a bit more health-conscious.”
But the possible hidden gem is Waf*Fulls. The unique combination of fluffy cake textures in a waffle shape increased by more than 539% in Q3 vs Q2 in 2024. It is a great contender for on-the-go, packed lunches or an afternoon pick-me-up with any in-store coffee machine.
Here at Epicurium, retailers can stock six varieties: Apple, Choco Hazelnut, Double Choc, Salted Caramel, Strawberry and Vanilla.
Elsewhere, retailers who stocked Forest Feast saw a remarkable 123% uplift, while Love Corn and Graze continued their summer growth trend with triple-digit increases.

Added benefit drinks are on the rise
Summer sales growth in soft drinks is clear in every store, with huge uplifts possible with the right display and ranging principles. While the focus for retailers is, of course, core brands, summer is a great time to appeal to different customers with alternative products, especially ones that particularly thrive in the warmer months.
Our data, for example, shows that last year orders of Warrior and VitHit jumped by +36% and +40% respectively. Across Q2 and Q3 in 2024, both brands had strong and consistent rises.
VitHit is a unique blend of water, juice, tea and vitamins, and contains less than 25 calories per bottle. At Epicurium, we have a wide range of their bottles and cans to choose from including Apple & Elderflower Lean & Green to Sparkling Mango & Passionfruit flavours.
While VitHit is for the broadly health-conscious consumer, Warrior is a high-performance protein product with gym goers and athletes at its heart. Available in two flavours, Berry and Tropical, Warrior Protein Water contains 10g of protein and has less than 50 calories.
For Jack Matthews, his recent winner from our range is Applied Nutrition.
“Added benefit products are increasing across the board, and we decided to test the waters with Applied Nutrition, which we sourced from Epicurium Wholesale,” he explains.
“It’s become quite a big feature in our chillers. We stock all five varieties available, but Elevate is the big one for us.”
Matthews added that the increased demand behind these drinks is thanks to the younger generation. He says that more and more young people are transitioning away from carbonated soft drinks and towards water, flavoured water and drinks that have protein, vitamins and minerals added to them.

Set Your Store Apart This Summer.
Being different is key to success for many retailers, and finding your niche involves understanding your customers better than anyone else.
Mehmet Guzel, owner of Simply Fresh in Bethnal Green, east London, says his customers tend to buy healthier, added benefit lines or premium options in his store.
“Our summer range is always a different slant on what’s already available,” he says. “So, we’ll have premium ice cream or something that’s on trend, or wine from a local distillery. We’ll always have something more local as we have become known for that.”
Guzel added that he sticks to the core range products for the majority of each category, but adds in ‘quality versions’.
On the health front, Guzel says his soft drink range this summer will include low-sugar flavoured water and other added benefit brands, as opposed to solely relying on traditional convenience store lines.
Promoting Your Unique Range
Posting on social media is a great way to tell your shoppers about any new brands or ranges that you’re introducing. Matthews, for example, regularly posts about seasonal products in the build-up to summer, to increase interest and become the store of choice.
Guzel, however, stopped personally using social media for his business as he found it was unnecessary, instead focusing on other means to gain loyal customers.
He says that simply offering a unique range is enough to get customers to tell others and return time and time again.
Stocking speciality and niche brands isn’t just a trend, it’s a proven strategy for boosting summer profits.
Want tailored insights for your store? Contact us today for tailored product recommendations.