Minding the shop: Tesco and Sir Leslie Porter

John Swinfield's Big Business

Minding the shop: Tesco
Secrets of the retail trade with Britain’s biggest shopkeeper. Sir Leslie Porter was the boss of Tesco – Britain’s largest supermarket chain. He was the son-in-law of Jack Cohen, the inventor of supermarkets and the founder of Tesco who started with a market stall in London’s east end. Cohen’s slogan was ‘Pile it High and Sell it Cheap’.
The sector is hotly competitive with the likes of Asda, Sainsburys, Morrisons, Waitrose, Ocado and German companies Aldi and Lidl, operating on wafer thin margins. John Swinfield took Porter on a surprise inspection of one of his Tesco stores.