Tesco CEO Ken Murphy has defended the supermarket as the union Unite accused it of “raking in mountains of cash” after its profits more than doubled in its last financial year.
Murphy insisted that it was doing what it could to support customers amid the had “never been more competitive on price”.
“We’re consistently the cheapest full-line grocer and have been for 16 consecutive months now,” he added. “We’ve never been cheaper than Asda in our history but we’ve been consistently so for 16 months. We haven’t been winning premium business from premium retailers but we’ve doing it for more than 12 months.”
Murphy said Tesco was taking a “balanced approach”, which involved not just doing what it can to ease inflation for customers, but looking after its stakeholders and leaving the business in a better shape than they found it.
“We’ve never had higher employee engagement scores than we’ve had this year, and we’ve consistently been number one on the Advantage survey with suppliers for eight years running. We have also given reasonable returns to shareholders, so we think the balanced model is working.”
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Tesco had also increased its investment in the company by nearly 50% since he joined the business, Murphy added.
He insisted that this had a “knock on effect” of putting money back into the community and other tertiary suppliers.
Murphy said: “We think this is a business that’s building positive momentum where every stakeholder can benefit. We’re paying considerably more tax than we were three years ago.
“These are all positive things for the country and the economy, and so we’re quite proud of it.”
The grocery giant revealed it had invested £70m to award store staff a “thank you” payment, which Murphy said looks to “recognise their brilliant work serving customers this year”.
For the average full-time Tesco store worker, the investment represents a payment of around £300.
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