Wholesaler Palmer & Harvey has revealed a guide of best-selling products across the bakery sector to help retailers stock the correct items in their core range.

Rolled out this week, the Guide to Best Selling Products provides the latest information on best-selling products broken down by category and sub-category, alongside top tips on merchandising and key convenience and forecourt sector trends.

Cakes represent a great opportunity for independent retailers, which are bought by 93% of UK households as a staple item, the guide revealed. It added that the top three best-selling cake products in c-stores and forecourts were McVitie’s Digestives Caramel Slices, Real Lancashire Eccles Cakes and Mrs Crimble’s Chocolate Macaroons.

Meanwhile, the research added that the home baking category is set to grow to £21m this year and the most popular items for c-stores were 1kg Tate & Lyle Granulated Sugar, 1.25kg McDougalls Plain Flour and 1kg Tate & Lyle Caster Sugar.

Hovis’ 800g Soft White Sliced Medium and Thick Bread loaves, and Warburtons Crumpets were the best sellers for c-stores and in the bread and morning goods category. Although seeded bread did not make the top three, it is one of the fastest-growing bread categories, selling 13.7m more loaves than it did last year, the wholesaler added.

Rory Brick, channel development director at Palmer & Harvey, said that although industry experts forecast growth in the convenience sector, it has never been more important for retailers to stock the right range.

“The Guide to Best Selling Products is a great tool for helping retailers gain insight into key categories, and understand which products are driving footfall and satisfying the demand of their customers,” said Brick.

The guide is delivered to all independent and mini-multiple retailers. It will also be available to view online.