Directors shop in store then cook for each other on self-catering strategy trip
In a bid to realign Tesco leadership strategy with what customers want, the retailer’s chief executive took its senior executives on an away day where he tasked them with buying, and then cooking, meals from Tesco stores.
Dave Lewis explained that the idea was to ensure that leaders engaged with how customers experience the stores.
Fifteen of the business’s most senior directors, used to managing multi-million pound sections of the businesses, shopped for provisions, then prepared food for each other in self-catering accommodation in Norfolk.
“I think if you’re in our business and you’re not spending all of your time looking at the quality and the presentation and the taste of the food and the products you serve – what are you doing?,” Lewis told The Mail on Sunday.
“I took my executive team away for a day and a night. It’s been a very frenetic time and I wanted to get to know the people and talk about where the business was and where it was heading.”
Those on the trip, including acting UK chief Robin Terrell, Trevor Masters, who runs the company’s £10 billion Asian business and Tesco bank chief Benny Higgins, David Hobbs, group business planning director, and group corporate affairs director Rebecca Shelley, were asked to work in pairs to prepare meals for each other.
Lewis explained: “I said to them: ‘You two get breakfast for the group, you do lunch and we’ll do dinner.’
“The meals had to come from Tesco and the competition so we as an exec group had a hands-on experience of going shopping, buying, preparing, eating and we sat and we looked through it all.”
Lewis was originally appointed to turnaround the retailer’s ailing fortunes as falling profits had dogged the business in the face of competition from low-cost retailers such as Aldi and Lidl.
However, within weeks of Lewis stepping into the role, Tesco was embroiled in a finance scandal when it came to light that profits had been overstated by £250m.