Introduction
Tesco Plc is firmly established as the leading food retailer in the United Kingdom. It is estimated that one pound in every seven spent on food in the UK is spent at Tesco stores. Tesco’s market share is nearly twice that of its nearest rival and its dominant position has been exploited effective to grow its non food businesses to a point where they have significant scale and are highly profitable, earning meaningful returns on investment, in their own right.
Today Tesco is an international business of significant scale and is active in 12 countries beyond the UK including Europe, Asia and North America. In excess of 28 million customers are served by the 160,000 employees of the Group’s international business which generates profits of £700m on sales of £13.8 billion. As of 2008 over the international business has been developed to a point where half of Tesco’s selling space is outside of the UK.
History
The origins of Tesco Plc stretch back nearly 100 years. Jack Cohen started out with a market stall in The East End of London and laid the foundations of one of the UK’s largest employers and most dynamic and well respected businesses.
The Tesco brand was conceived when Cohen bought a shipment of tea from T E Stockwell and made the new labels using the first three letters of their name and adding C and O from his own. Thus Tesco came into being in 1924. In 1929 the first store was opened in Burnt Oak near Edgware in London and the company floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1947 as Tesco Stores (Holdings) Limited.
Throughout the 1950s and 60s Tesco grew organically and through acquisitions to a point where it owned over 800 stores.
Tesco founder jack Cohen was ...