Tesco News
Richard Cousins and Mikael Ohlsson will join the board of the beleaguered retailer on 1 November 2014
Tesco has appointed two new non-exec directors.
Richard Cousins and Mikael Ohlsson will join the board of the controversy-mired retailer on 1 November 2014 as non-exec Directors.
Cousins has been group CEO of Compass Group PLC since 2006. He was a non-exec director of Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC from 2009 until May 2014, and also held the same role at HBOS PLC and Bank of Scotland from 2007 to 2009.
Ohlsson, meanwhile, was CEO and president of the IKEA Group until September 2013.
He is currently a non-exec director of Volvo Car Corporation, Ikano SA and Lindengruppen.
Sir Richard Broadbent, Tesco chairman, said: “I am delighted to welcome Mikael and Richard to the board, and know that their broad skills and experience will be a real asset to the company in the coming years.
“Mikael and Richard have been updated on and are wholly supportive of the steps being taken by the new management team to rebuild trust in Tesco and to focus all the resources of the business to deliver value to our customers.”
Ex-M&S finance officer Alan Stewart has joined troubled Tesco ahead of schedule following yesterday’s shock admission of £250m overstatement
Beleaguered retailer Tesco has parachuted its new chief financial officer into the role more than two months earlier than planned.
Alan Stewart, previously in the same post at Marks & Spencer, was due to join in December, to replace Laurie McIlwee who resigned in April.
According to the BBC, the move was at the personal request of Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis to his M&S counterpart Marc Bolland, who allowed Stewart to leave early.
Yesterday Tesco made the shock announcement that it had overstated its half-year profit forecast by £250 million, and suspended four of its senior executives.
Among those suspended are UK managing director Chris Bush, and GFS architect Matt Simister.
Analysts have said that the overstatement may have come from commercial income from suppliers that had been registered early in order to boost profits. It is not yet clear if contracts with fresh produce suppliers were involved in the issue.
Tesco has launched an independent investigation into the error, headed by Deloitte, and has said work is now ongoing to establish the effect on full-year results, due to be released on 23 October.
English pink flesh apple ‘turns heads’ with unusual yellow skin, launching as pack of four in Tesco tomorrow
A British-grown pink flesh apple will launch at 120 Tesco stores tomorrow.
The apple, named “Surprize,” has yellow and orange skin and has been developed by Hereford-based grower William Barnett.
Described as sweet and aromatic, Surprize is being trialed exclusively by Tesco and will appear in select stores from tomorrow (Tuesday 16 September) and will retail at £1.75 for a pack of four.
It has limited supplies, but will be stocked again next year if successful, according to Tesco product developer, Ciara Grace.
“This apple is a real head-turner and literally stops people in their tracks on account of its unusual pale orange and yellow skin,” said Grace.
“But the real fun starts when they take a bite and see the unique pink flesh inside. It was named Surprize because of the fantastic reaction it gets.
“Most important of all is that it’s delicious, with a sweet taste and very juicy byt firm flesh.”
Barnett, who helped develop the red flesh variety Rosette Raspberry Ripple in 2012, said his mission is to develop “more interesting” varieties of English apples.
“I set off on that mission 10 years ago and since then have helped develop several popular new varieties including the Red Windsor; Tillington’s Delight and the Rosette Raspberry Ripple,” he said.
Last month, Tesco was named as the UK’s leading English apple and pear supplier.
A Tesco store near to the Reading Festival has filled its fruit and veg aisles with cider and spirits ready for ‘biggest weekend’ of year.
Tesco has replaced fruit and vegetable aisles with booze in one of its stores to cater for festival-goers in the run-up to Reading Festival.
The Tesco Extra store, 10 minutes away from the event in Reading, has placed bottles of Jagermeister and vodka in fresh produce pallets. It has also filled whole aisles with crates of strongbow cider.
Local business Warings Bakery tweeted pictures of the supermarket shelves with the caption: “Our local Tesco have ditched salad for spirits ready for RDG festival.”
The store also has a dedicated ‘festival shop’ area for the weekend and will be playing music and holding events from tomorrow onwards.
A Tesco spokesperson told the Mirror newspaper that this weekend is the biggest of the year for the Reading West store, even beating Christmas, and managers work hard to make sure festival-goers can buy everything they need.
“During the festival we expect to see 35,000 people a day coming through the store, and yes, we expect some of them will want to buy alcohol,” the spokesperson said.