Village stores are raising concerns over what they perceive as a fight for survival, accusing supermarket giant Tesco of employing its cash-and-carry division to "squeeze" them out of the market by limiting supplies and grocery deliveries. Independent retailers, often operating alongside local post offices, have informed.
Media that a set of recent modifications introduced by Tesco's wholesale division, Booker, are exacerbating pressures. This comes at a time when certain villages find themselves with only one small shop or none at all.
Andrew Goodacre, the chief executive of the British Independent Retailers Association (Bira), called on the UK competition watchdog to examine the issue and said he would be raising the matter with Kevin Hollinrake, the minister for small business.
“I think it’s shocking,” Goodacre said of the problems reported by small retailers. “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.”
Seven years ago, the competition watchdog made a widely criticized decision to approve the acquisition of Booker, the UK's largest grocery wholesaler, by Tesco, its largest supermarket chain. Through Booker, Tesco also oversees the Londis, Budgens, and Premier groups, comprising thousands of independent stores bound by purchasing agreements with the wholesaler.
In 2017, at the time of the Booker takeover, rival wholesalers wrote to the Competition and Markets Authority warning it would hand Tesco “incontestable power over the procurement of all grocery categories in the UK”.