JumpingAnaconda
Winger
This is partly why their business model works so well. I am not arguing over whether they are catering to a need. However, they are doing it in an uncompetitive way and with an iron fist pinned on their suppliers. Tesco pioneered centralised distribution, with massive unified deliveries pooling together various types of goods and suppliers. In turn it made it very difficult for small independent stores that previously had multiple deliveries to maintain their supply lines. As a result many of the former independents end up becoming part of a larger franchise, such as 'One Stop' shops, which are owned by... Tesco.
For many suppliers it was not longer worth their while to supply the little guys, and they put a critical part of turnover in Tesco's basket. Subsequently Tesco turned the screw. You can not underestimate the market dominance that Tesco had between 1994 and 2009. They were in the box seat on everything, and everybody else was just chasing their tales. In one move they destroyed what was left of the traditional British cornershop by taking away its supply lines, and leaving them reliant on cash and carry brands, stuck in the old ways and with no direct contact with suppliers, and then offered one of the only routes out of the problem with their own franchise brand. It is total domination of the market on all fronts and it in uncompetitive.
Tesco have used the concept of social regeneration to justify many of their domineering oversized developments. They have paid for regeneration as I have mentioned. They are opportunists, but they have also been known to cause the problems, or liaise with local councilors in order to foster the kind of environment where anything, let alone a Tesco would be an improvement. Their business works on the basis that people get what they want conveniently and then get out of there. If everybody was aware of a tenth of the things Tesco have got up to, and if people valued that above the convenience of shopping there, they would be doomed.
One last thing - Tesco Extras were originally built on quite a standard plan. The men's staff toilets were usually just above the in store bakery. One of the main service access point for the building usually required opening a panel in the men's staff toilets and standing on some sewer drainage pipes to get to the business end. Often this would result in the pipes being broken causing raw sewage to leak in to the ceiling and drip down into the bakery below. I have seen with my own eyes yellow water dripping into an operating bakery, with two cleaners permanently stationed just mopping it up, with it splashing around ovens which are being left opened, and with bread being removed etc.
I got lumbered with managing a Tesco instore bakery one morning. When I went to check everything was going smoothly, one of the bakers told me that there was a squirrel trapped in the oven system somewhere. They thought it was in the ventilation system, but they were not sure. I got them to switch everything off and sure enough, we could hear it rattling about somewhere in their. I looked around and there were little floury squirrel footprints everywhere, and some evidence that some of the other bread and cake stock on the shelves and been given a bit of a nibbling. Unbelievably, even though this was a straightforward vermin problem, and it was likely that the squirrel had got to the exposed food on the shelves, the store duty manager had told them to carry on producing and to put bread out for sale. That duty manager had already signed over to the next duty manager, so straight away I told the bakers to take anything produced in the oven off of the shelves, and I went looking for the current duty manager to get permission to pull everything that was not packaged off the shelves. It was not unusual to get a call from head office with a code number (I can't remember the number) and that meant you had to get the stock off of the shelves as soon possible, and as far as I was concerned this was no different. So I found the duty manager and she was not too happy that I was pulling stuff and she told them to put it all back. I have no doubt she would have preferred to have done the right thing, but if she had it would probably have been a permanent mark against her name, and she would likely have found it difficult to make any progress at the store or any other in the region. It is just a horrible despicable company.
(My recollection is that that squirrel was in the oven for a good few days).
Because if you try and sue someone for trying to say something that is true, you need to be sure that it is at least your word against theirs, and that there is not upwards of another 100,000 people that would be ready to stick their neck out and confirm the things they are saying. Not only that, you would need to be ready for a lot more to come out when people start poking at the surface.
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