Why Britain loves to hate Tesco

Tesco is the largest supermarket in Britain, but critics argues that it abuses its power to exploit farmers and uses unfair practices to stifle competition. Fans say that it helps the poor. What's the truth about Tesco?

How big is Tesco?

Huge. It has close to one third of the £95bn food and household goods retail market. That share is gradually increasing, despite already being about the same as its two nearest rivals put together: J Sainsbury and Asda each have close to 16%. Most people already know the much-quoted statistic that one pound in every eight spent in UK retailers is spent in Tesco. In fact, its position is even stronger than that. In the six months to August, boosted by warm weather and the football World Cup, Tesco took £17.4bn from Britain's shoppers. That's roughly £1 in every £7 spent or £1,117 every second.

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Simon Wilson’s first career was in book publishing, as an economics editor at Routledge, and as a publisher of non-fiction at Random House, specialising in popular business and management books. While there, he published Customers.com, a bestselling classic of the early days of e-commerce, and The Money or Your Life: Reuniting Work and Joy, an inspirational book that helped inspire its publisher towards a post-corporate, portfolio life.   

Since 2001, he has been a writer for MoneyWeek, a financial copywriter, and a long-time contributing editor at The Week. Simon also works as an actor and corporate trainer; current and past clients include investment banks, the Bank of England, the UK government, several Magic Circle law firms and all of the Big Four accountancy firms. He has a degree in languages (German and Spanish) and social and political sciences from the University of Cambridge.