In many ways Tesco and Morrisons are British success stories: the story of a hard-working individual who from very little builds up a business.... until it becomes a huge empire. Morrisons was founded by William Morrison in 1899, initially as a Northern-England egg and butter merchant in Bradford. Wheareas Tesco was founded, as a one-man business, by Jack Cohen in London's East End in 1919 when he began selling groceries at a market in Hackney, and soon after created the Tesco brand-name to sell imported tea. Staying with the Tesco history: the first store opened in 1929; the first supermarket in 1956; and during the 1950's and 1960's it bought out other long established chains including 200 Harrow Stores outlets and 212 Irwins stores. Skipping a couple of decades, Tesco rapidly expanded it's presence in Scotland during the 1990's. Inverness has since become known as "Tescotown" because apparently 50p in every £1 spent on food is believed to be spent in the town is spent at one of its three Tesco stores. In 2007 Clevedon has had to tackle the proposed expansion of it's already large Tesco store, and Nailsea who have a 24hr Tesco superstore (the car park of which now occupies the site of the historic glassworks) has had to contest Tesco's plans to open a second retail outlet.

Think your supporting your local shops by spending at One Shop? Think again! The growth of Tesco across the UK is exponential. For example, in 2002 Tesco acquired 862 convenience stores including One Stop, Day & Night, and Dillons newsagents. For the financial year ending February 2006 they had over £39 billion of revenue, with profits exceeding £2.2 billion. This was up on the previous fiscal year 2005 when it's total revenue was £33 billion. Based these figures, if Tesco were a country it would be 55th in the World Bank's ranking, and it's still climbing.

The concern is that the dominance of the supermarkets is to the detriment of local businesses who are struggling to stay afloat, as well as concern for the whole supply chain such as British farmers, Third World workers etc.. If you feel satisfied for buying a pair of jeans from one of the huge stores for £4, just make sure it's not at the expense of a Bangladesh worker being paid 4p an hour for an 80-hour week (details here). Under one-roof the shopper can now buy all their groceries, the best selling books, the top 100 albums, DVD's, newspapers, magazines, stationary, clothing, alcohol, holidays, insurance, mobile phones and tariffs, furniture, fuel for their car, etc.... On the one hand it appears brilliant: all your consumer needs under one roof, and on the other hand ....

For further information watch "Tesco - The Supermarket that's eating Britain" - a Dispatches documentary by Channel 4. Recommended reading: Tescopoly: How one shop came out on top and why it matters by Andrew Simms



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