Tesco: Wholesale arm accused of ‘bullying’ village shops out of business

Tesco has been accused of using its wholesale arm Booker to limit delivery and supplies, effectively “bullying” small local shops out of business.

Independent retailers in villages and small communities have expressed their worry that the supermarket giant’s cash-and-carry has introduced new changes to deliberately become more restrictive, reported The Guardian.

Among other grievances, the village shops claim Booker has reduced its range by 30%; withdrawn shopper favourites and sought-after brands, such as Yorkshire Tea, Rowntree’s sweets and Colman’s mustard; and reduced access to deliveries.

One Gloucestershire village shop owner Jonathan Cobb told the Guardian said it felt like Tesco was “slowly pushing us aside”.

Subscribe to Grocery Gazette for free

Sign up here to get the latest grocery and food news each morning

Cobb explained that despite his local Booker ceasing to sell popular products such as Tuc and Cheddars biscuits, local shops were also unable to sell any alternatives as they were branded with “as part of the Tesco family”.

British Independent Retailers Association (Bira) chief executive Andrew Goodacre described the claims raised by small businesses as “shocking” and called on the UK competition regulator to look into the issue.

Goodacre added: “This shows the worst of a large company bullying little shops. Communities want these small shops and these are not businesses making millions of pounds.”

Concern about the impact on competition was first raised in 2017 when Tesco purchased Booker. Rival wholesalers warned the Competition and Markets Authority that the acquisition would grant Tesco “incontestable power over the procurement of all grocery categories in the UK”.

A Booker spokesperson said: “Booker is very proud to serve thousands of local retailers and everything we do is aimed to give better choice, price and service to our retailers so that they can better serve their customers.

Last year, we reviewed our range across all branded and own-brand products to ensure we have the right offer and in response to feedback that customers want more consistency across branches. As part of that review, we removed products that customers weren’t choosing to make more space for products that really matter. Overall feedback has been positive and we’ve already seen improvements in availability. We will always listen to our customers and would welcome any feedback on improving the range we have.

We have not reduced our delivery frequency and while we have always had a minimum spend on orders, we are very open to working with any retailer who might not be able to meet the minimum order requirements. By opening a new Distribution Centre in Fareham, we will be able to increase our delivery capacity over the coming years and we remain absolutely committed to serving community shops across the UK either through branch or delivery.”