18 ASIAN TRADER 19 SEPTEMBER 2025
he alert pierces through the gentle
hum of the radio in Salford’s One Stop
Carlton Convenience store.
“A shoplifting incident may just have
occurred in this store, all team members to
follow protocol and be advised.” Within five
seconds of someone slipping a chocolate bar
into their pocket, artificial intelligence has
spotted the theft, sending video clips to every
staff member’s device.
But this isn’t just another high-tech
deterrent in the endless war against retail
crime. It’s part of a philosophy that has earned
Priyesh Vekaria recognition as Responsible
Retailer of the Year 2024 at the Asian Trader
Awards.
A former police sergeant, Priyesh brings
the insight of a decade spent in the force to
every decision he makes as a retailer. But the
pivotal chapter in his retail journey began
with a simple drive home from work in 2013,
newly married and searching for something
more than his public sector career could offer.
“I was driving home one day, and I saw this
building. It was an old pub, and I thought I
could do something with that,” Priyesh
recalls. That dilapidated pub would become
the foundation not just for a thriving
business, but for a revolutionary approach to
convenience retailing that puts community
welfare at its heart.
An unexpected path
The journey to that moment began when his
parents arrived in the UK as migrants in the
1990s – his father from East Africa, his mother
born in India. They settled briefly in London
before his father spotted opportunities in
retailing and embraced it as the family’s new
beginning in Britain.
The family’s first store, the Go Local
Duchy Stores in Salford, became the
bedrock of their livelihood and the
place where Priyesh and his brother
Amit (featured in this issue’s Retail
Corner) grew up, absorbing the
rhythms of community commerce.
“That was where the foundations
were laid in our minds that it was a
fallback option for us,” Priyesh
explains. “Initially, we were asked to
complete our further education and try
and find professional work, and if we
couldn’t find anything that we enjoyed
or that made us comfortable and
steady, then that was an option for us.”
The professional route seemed
promising. Priyesh qualified in criminal
justice, practiced personal injury law
for seven months, and simultaneously
built a career in policing that would
span a decade across three constabular
ies – Leicestershire, Cheshire, and Greater
Manchester. Rising to the rank of sergeant, he
managed teams of 30 officers, gaining what
he calls “an insight into the psychology of the
individuals that we serve in the community.”
By 2013, Priyesh found himself question
ing his path. The realisation that he needed
“to do something that’s now going to feed me
and my family, not benefit a supervisor or a
line manager or someone else’s business” was
crystallising. Then came that fateful drive
past the old pub, followed by a conversation
with his father that would reshape his
understanding of what business could be.
“My dad said to me, ‘Priyesh, you’re not
doing anything that’s going to give you a
comfortable lifestyle, or going to give you
savings in the long term. Why don’t you go
into business, do something?’”
Building from ruins
What followed was a masterclass in vision
over immediate reality. The pub wasn’t just
run-down – professional surveys revealed fire
damage and structural problems that made
restoration impossible. Rather than retreat,
Priyesh and his father went to the drawing
board, securing bank backing for an ambi
tious reconstruction: demolishing the entire
building and creating a ground-floor commer
cial unit with two flats above and four
three-storey townhouses.
The property portfolio was impressive, but
the real challenge lay in understanding how to
serve the community that would sustain it. “I
hadn’t really quite grasped how I was going to
deliver convenience retail to this community
that I’m currently serving,” Priyesh reflects.
“So, it was a lot of understanding the
community’s needs, the wants, the demo
graphics, the dynamics.”
This learning curve led through partner
ships with symbol groups Select and Save,
then Go Local Extra, before the breakthrough
decision in 2022 to franchise with One Stop.
The results speak volumes: weekly turnover
jumped from £17,000 to £28-29,000, with an
additional £5-6,000 from online services.
But the numbers only tell part of the story.
What truly sets One Stop Carlton Conveni
ence apart is what Priyesh calls his Dynamic
Risk Assessment approach – a system
borrowed from his police training and adapted
for retail that goes far beyond checking IDs for
age-restricted products.
Heart of responsibility
“Dynamic Risk Assessment is something that
is a skill that we picked up and a training
process that we were taught through the
police force,” Priyesh explains. In policing, it’s
called the national decision-making model,
designed to help officers justify and rational
ise important decisions. In retail, it becomes
something more profound: a framework for
genuinely caring for customers as
human beings.
The system starts with a core value:
preventing age-restrictive products
from falling into the hands of minors.
But it extends far beyond checking dates
of birth. “They may be of age, but do they
have the mental capacity to buy this
product, and is it safe for them to do so?
Are they already under the influence of
something, and should we be the ones
that intervene?”
PROFILES IN SUCCESS
ASIAN TRADER AWARDS WINNERS
For ex-policeman Priyesh Vekaria, looking
after his store, staff and shoppers is second-
nature, and he succeeds wonderfully at
putting community welfare front and centre
Responsible through and through
Sapna and Priyesh Vekaria