Jack Cohen (Tesco)
Encyclopedia
Sir John Edward Cohen born Jacob Edward Kohen and commonly known as Jack Cohen, was a British businessman who founded the Tesco
Tesco
Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues and the second-largest measured by profits...

 supermarket
Supermarket
A supermarket, a form of grocery store, is a self-service store offering a wide variety of food and household merchandise, organized into departments...

 chain.

Career

He was born in Chatham in the Medway
Medway
Medway is a conurbation and unitary authority in South East England. The Unitary Authority was formed in 1998 when the City of Rochester-upon-Medway amalgamated with Gillingham Borough Council and part of Kent County Council to form Medway Council, a unitary authority independent of Kent County...

 area of Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

, to a Jewish family, the son of an Avram Kohen, a Polish immigrant who worked as a tailor, and his first wife, Sime Zamremb. He began his working life as an apprentice tailor to his father but in 1917 he joined the Royal Flying Corps
Royal Flying Corps
The Royal Flying Corps was the over-land air arm of the British military during most of the First World War. During the early part of the war, the RFC's responsibilities were centred on support of the British Army, via artillery co-operation and photographic reconnaissance...

 where he served as a canvas maker. Upon his demobilisation in 1919 he established himself as a market stall holder in Hackney
Hackney Central
Hackney Central is the central district of the London Borough of Hackney in London, England. It comprises the area roughly surrounding, and extending north from Mare Street. It is situated north east of Charing Cross...

, in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

's East End
East End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...

 by purchasing surplus NAAFI stock with his demob money.

He soon became the owner of a number of market stalls, and started a wholesale
Wholesale
Wholesaling, jobbing, or distributing is defined as the sale of goods or merchandise to retailers, to industrial, commercial, institutional, or other professional business users, or to other wholesalers and related subordinated services...

 business. Initially the other stalls were run by members of the family but gradually non-family members were added. Cohen and his wife worked 7 days a week, starting at dawn and counting money until late. At each market the traders would gather and, at a signal they would race to their favoured pitch. Cohen could not run fast so he simply threw his cap at the spot and this could beat anyone.

In 1924, he created the Tesco brand name from the initials of a tea supplier, T. E. Stockwell (formally Messrs Torring and Stockwell of Mincing Lane), and the first two letters of his surname. The market trading business became difficult to expand because partners tended to be unreliable so eventually he changed to high street shops without doors, looking and sounding as far as possible like market stalls. The first two Tesco stores opened at Becontree
Becontree
Becontree is a place in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, east north-east of Charing Cross.-Becontree estate:The area was developed between 1921 and 1932 by the London County Council as a large council estate of 27,000 homes, intended as "homes for heroes" after World War I. With a...

 and Burnt Oak
Burnt Oak
Burnt Oak is a suburb predominantly in the London Borough of Barnet south of Edgware, although parts of it fall within Brent and Harrow.The name Burnt Oak was first used in 1754 and from then until the 1850s referred to no more than a field on the eastern side of the Edgware Road...

 in 1931. By 1939, Cohen owned a hundred Tesco stores. His expansion was helped by the growth of new shopping centres. Retailers are often reluctant to be the first to sign a contract in a new centre lest they become the only ones. With his market experience and courage Cohen was often the one to take that risk and he had ways of drawing a crowd. Developers became keen to help him with his start-up costs because of his ability to get people into a new centre, with benefit to the other shops.

Sometime around 1930 he changed his name by deed poll to John Edward at the suggestion of his bank manager whose staff had trouble distinguishing between the many Jacob Cohens banking at the Mare Street branch of the Midland Bank
Midland Bank
Midland Bank Plc was one of the Big Four banking groups in the United Kingdom for most of the 20th century. It is now part of HSBC. The bank was founded as the Birmingham and Midland Bank in Union Street, Birmingham, England in August 1836...

 in Hackney.

In 1932, having opened his first shops, Cohen travelled to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 to review their self-service supermarkets. At the time he was not impressed and felt they would never be accepted in the UK. After the war he took another look and listened to his son-in-law Hyman Kreitman, who was very keen. He opened one of the first British supermarkets. The new strategy was led by Kreitman who understood how to manage this new style of shop and the crucial tasks of mass buying, selling and logistics. TESCO grew strongly. It gradually drew ahead of its rivals and took over many of them.

He was married to Sarah Fox, daughter of an immigrant Russian-Jewish tailor: they had two daughters, Shirley
Shirley Porter
Dame Shirley Porter, Lady Porter, DBE, is a former Conservative leader of Westminster City Council in London and a prominent philanthropist in Israel and the UK. She is the daughter and heir of Sir Jack Cohen, the founder of Tesco supermarkets...

 and Irene.

Cohen was knighted in 1969.

External links

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