The day before he died, Sir Jack Cohen, founder of Tesco, paid a surprise visit to a big new store in Essex. After a triumphal tour in his wheelchair, he asked to be taken up to the balcony overlooking the shop floor. Here, the old man quietly surveyed the latest outlet of a corporation he had seen grow from a small market stall in London’s East End in the 1920s to the most successful retail giant in the country. Then, as tears rolled down his cheeks, he murmured, ‘I never imagined that this was how it would be.’ 

Twenty years on, the phenomenal success of Tesco is barely imaginable to any of us. As its spokesmen are so fond of trumpeting, it currently accounts for £1 in every three spent in Britain’s supermarkets. Tesco is also the first UK retailer to unveil annual profits of more than £2