Amazon is stepping into the fresh food ring – it might already be too late for the rest to keep up

Nine years ago the then chief executive of Tesco told me his main worry was Amazon entering the fray. Well now it has, and it spells serious trouble for our complacent British supermarkets, writes Chris Blackhurst

Amazon is to expand rapidly into online fresh groceries, with the aim of reaching millions of shoppers across the UK by the end of this year (Getty)

So Phil was right all along. When Philip Clarke became chief executive of Tesco we had dinner. It was 2011 and he’d just taken over from the formidable Sir Terry Leahy. Like his predecessor, Clarke was from Merseyside. But there’s where the similarity stopped. They were opposite in character. Whereas Leahy could be taciturn and inscrutable, the new boss was emotional, fast-talking, non-stop.

Naturally, Clarke was ebullient, chuffed. Who wouldn’t be, after taking over at the helm of Britain’s biggest retailer, the powerhouse of a supermarket chain?

But by the time we’d got to the main course, I discovered Phil’s optimism only went skin-deep. He confessed to worries. Tesco had taken a pasting with expansion in the US; his group faced an increasingly tortuous struggle to be allowed to open more large stores in the UK; the budget operators Aldi and Lidl were making inroads.