How Tesco bounced back to bag a third of all UK grocery sales

Reach into your pocket and you will probably find evidence of Tesco. Whether it is a Clubcard, mobile -phone or just a receipt from one of its 3,000 stores, the UK's biggest retailer is part of everyday British life.

- Sarah Butler

As its chief executive, Ken Murphy, proudly proclaimed this month, the supermarket chain has grabbed even more of our spending this year, landing almost a third of all grocery sales and receiving more than £1 in every £10 spent in UK retail. Data released this week showed Tesco's sales growth outgunning its traditional rivals.

The retailer's resurgence is a remarkable turnaround for a business whose relentless growth across Britain through the 1990s and early 2000s was abruptly curtailed as management became focused on overseas expansion and profits over service.

An accounting scandal in 2014 appeared to close the chapter on a corporate success story that had regulators and politicians concerned about its dominance.

Now, Tesco has its mojo back and is quietly reasserting its stranglehold on the UK market - this time in a far less visible manner.

Every little helps

The term "Tescopoly" was first coined in the 2000s, when concerns about the retailer - and its supermarket peers - putting local high street shops out of business were at their height.

Regulators allowed Tesco, then led by Sir Terry Leahy, to buy up the 860-store convenience chain T&S Stores in 2002, and it later marched into selling electrical goods, homewares and clothing in its out of town Homeplus stores from 2005. Tesco had already set up a banking venture with Royal Bank of Scotland in 1997 and its mobile phone service with 02 in 2003.

Huge superstores were built on the edge of towns and there were concerns about it hoarding land to block rivals from setting up shop nearby and using its dominant scale to bully suppliers.

By the time Tesco tried to take on Amazon and Apple with the Hudl tablet computer in 2013, it seemed there was no area of life where the supermarket did not reach.