Twenty-two years ago Tesco’s Tim Mason, then second-in-command at the grocer, stood up in front of a room packed with analysts at Café Royal on London’s Regent Street. He announced Tesco had entered the digital age in one of the first such forays.
Today, as more shoppers order their groceries online, the sector has ballooned to be worth about £11.6bn a year. That still only amounts to 6pc of the UK’s £193bn grocery market. But it has nevertheless become one of the most fiercely contested segments of the hyper-competitive retail industry.
