In April this year, Khalid Hussain, director of PAK Supermarkets, opened an £8m, 80,000 sq ft flagship store in Birmingham. It is the largest Asian supermarket in Europe and a far cry from the corner shop opened by his father and uncle on Birmingham's Lozells Road in 1978.

"My father and uncle didn't expand the business. They continued to trade at the same store," explains Hussain. "Then when my father partially retired 15 years ago, I joined the business and had the vision to expand," he says.

Hussain started opening other sites (there are now six in total—five in Birmingham and one in Rotherham) but none on the scale of the new superstore at Washwood Heath. "The new superstore is aimed at as many communities as possible—West Indians, Eastern Europeans, Bangladeshis and mainstream—so as not to isolate ourselves," says Hussain.

"It was a big learning curve for me. The planning process for a supermarket on this level is very complicated. There are so many issues to deal with—contamination, noise pollution—and I didn't have much experience."

One of the most important things Hussain had to learn was not to cut corners on the cost of employing professional people to fill this gap. "You have to have the right knowledge and the right team behind you to achieve your goals," he says.