Good coffee, artisan bread and a new current account for shoppers: none of this matters in Phil Clarke’s increasingly fraught attempt to get Tesco motoring again.
The battle will be won and lost by how well the supermarket giant copes with discount retailers Aldi and Lidl which are wielding the weapon of price in the way it used to so effectively.
Clarke is no quitter. He has pruned Tesco’s international estate dispassionately and put his weight behind online and convenience which have given it a strong position in the London market.
The question is whether a Tesco lifer is the best man to effect a culture change and inject new ideas into the big-box retailer.
With every disappointing trading quarter, Clarke’s tenure looks more and more untenable.
His frustration is clear. It is laudable that Clarke wants to build a different kind of retailer — trusted not revered.
But to save his job, and to stop the rot, it’s time for an old-style Tesco move: bring on the all-out price war.
