"Scratch-baked from raw ingredients each day" ... that's utterly meaningless mate.
Chorleywood bread is also "Scratch-baked from raw ingredients each day", indeed that was the point of the invention of the process, to make it quicker from low-protein flour with very little proving time.

With no mention of which ingredients or what method(s) and time(s) of proving, it could just be upmarket rubbish in a nice old-fashioned paper bag.
For example, bread can be (and very often is) baked containing GM enzymes (labelled as mere "flour improver"icon_wink.gif, very large amounts of yeast to cut down on the proving time ... and even so-called "organic" bread is allowed to contain GM soya flour.

For what it's worth, I'm happy to accept that this particular "artisan" (meaningless term) bread is decent and fit to eat.
I am merely being deliberately picky to illustrate how semantics can be used to make sh11t sound palateable.

I seem to remember watching a film once where a dystopian future Earth was effectively ruled over by one giant conglomerate known simply as 'The Company'. Everything that the inhabitants of Earth 'enjoyed' was supplied and controlled by The Company (including housing, food, policing etc). Whilst I'm not sure we're going to get to that stage any time soon, the casual privatisation of our public services and the dominance of giant companies like Tesco et al does seem to be leading us down that path.

Wasn't that Dr Who?

I don't think so. I've never watched Dr Who. Never fancied it.

When a company start-up becomes successful, many many entrepreneurs look for an exit plan to realise their investment and the worth of the business. They could look at floating, or they could look at selling all or part of the business. I wouldn't, therefore, suggest it's a stranglehold on enterprise - perhaps the opposite, in fact: after selling growing businesses, many people then go on to start new ventures.

Yep, that's me! It keeps the wolves from the door, and the fridge stocked up.

Because obviously the bigger the business, the better. Automatically.

As if the horsemeat scandal showed us nothing.

I see Tesco are one of those companies with more than their fair share of offshore subsidiaries.

I thought you knew that the British Virgin Isles is the world's leading supplier of Value Baked Beans. Tesco buy them from there and then sell them at a great loss to the undeserving British consumer.

Prior to the Pepsico takeover of Walkers Crisps, Walkers would buy potatoes from British farms, slice and fry them, add flavours, bag them and sell them to British supermarkets and would then pay corporation tax on their profits.

These days the same Walkers crisps factories now buy their potatoes from a Swiss subsidiary, even though the Swiss subsidiary still buys the potatoes from the same British farms. The Walkers factory then processes the potatoes and sells the crisps to another Swiss-based Pepsico subsidiary, this second subsidiary then sells the crisps to British supermarkets and the Walkers factory no longer pays any corporation tax because they no longer make a profit.

Anyone seriously expect Gideon to change anything here?

Cod’ead, I’m going to go all corporate on you again here!

Tesco are the third largest retailer in the world (by revenue), and operate in many countries. However, unlike businesses such as Amazon and Starbucks, corporation tax (or country equivalent) is paid in a number of countries depending where profit – or loss – is made.

Tesco worldwide revenues in 12/13 excluding VAT were £65 billion. Worldwide trading profit before tax was about £3.5 billion. The UK represents around 66% of both revenue and trading profit.

Total Group tax was paid on profit before tax prior to any one-off charges - tax paid in the UK was about £350m, and tax paid overseas was about £230m

One-off charges in 12/13 were big: pulling out of the US, writing down UK property values, etc, meant that about £1.6 billion was taken from trading profits, meaning statutory profit of just under £2 billion.

If you look at percentage of tax paid on trading profit, you’ll see that it equates to approx. 16.6% worldwide. If you look at tax on statutory profit, it’s approx. 29%.

As a multinational retailer, Tesco are obviously successful. They are making around a 5% profit on revenues. Compare this to some large multinational manufacturers: businesses such as P&G, Unilever, etc consistently achieve 12%-15% profit. General retail really is a low margin, high volume business - scale is the only way to get shareholder returns.

It's a PLC - profit is a shareholder requirement, otherwise there'd be no dividend. It's economics.

Of course, you believe that it's nothing to do with individuals / communities / health / sustainability. Perhaps a read of the PLCs' Corporate Responsibility information may help. Details herehttps://www.tescoplc.com/index.asp?pageid

Headlines from this (for 12/13):-
----------------------------------------
* Industry-leading performance in reducing CO2 emissions.
* 9.3m people involved in some form of activity via Tesco (eg. Race For Life / Tesco FA Football Skills / Aerobics, etc). Every evening on the car park at our Bangkok Head Office, I watch around 200 staff and customers doing aerobics to blaring music! This is replicated at every large-format store in the country.
* Staff and customer fundraising last year was >£13 million. The Charity of the Year was Cancer Research, and I believe that this is the largest single-business 12 month fundraising effort ever.
* At least 1% of pre-tax profits donated to charity in 12/13, in addition to the £13m to the Charity of the Year. £74.5m.
* This years Charity of the Year is Diabetes UK - we're after £15m!!

.....but, don't let the positives blur the negatives, hey?

Pity so much of the sugar-laden, processed crap produced/retailed by Tesco and its like are helping cause it in the first place, eh?



Indeed. The homogenisation of high streets, the bullying of producers and councils, the absurdity of the chains of production (see horsemeat again), the driving down of choice and out of business small, independents, the treatment of staff (including a refusal to pay a living wage to many).

Let's stick those to one side and discuss the filthy lucre that the shareholders get and the sops to an idea of responsibility.