Tesco has been the doyen of the supermarket sector in the UK for the last decade. Other groups have struggled - Sainsbury, for instance, lost market share, while Morrisons had a couple of terrible years after the over-ambitious acquisition of Safeway - but Tesco seems invincible.
Or at least, it did seem invincible. But this year, for the first time, it's seen sales growth falling below the other supermarkets - and has started losing market share. At the same time, other supermarkets seem to have become stronger - Sainsbury has begun to turn itself around, Asda has been a strong competitor under Wal-Mart's ownership, and Waitrose - which you might have thought would be a recession victim with its upper middle class customer base and quality, rather than price, promise - has seen some truly stunning performance after it introduced its own budget range....
Is Tesco's still the king of UK supermarket retailing?
