A couple of decades ago, Tesco was going to bestride the globe. Little ol’ UK, plus Ireland, didn’t offer enough room for the country’s biggest supermarket chain to expand, ran a theory that was encouraged from outside by complaints about a “Tescopoly”.

“We are on the threshold of becoming one of the few successful international retailers,” declared Sir Terry Leahy, then the chief executive, in 2007, confidently predicting that half the group’s revenues would come from overseas within a decade.