4.4 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2023
⏱️ 37 minutes
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0:00.0 | BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts |
0:04.9 | Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Deser Island Disks Podcast. |
0:08.6 | Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them |
0:13.9 | if they were cast away to a desert island. |
0:16.5 | And for right reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. |
0:21.2 | I hope you enjoy listening. |
0:44.3 | My cast away this week is the businessman, Samalkan Walker. |
0:47.6 | He's the co-founder of the supermarket chain Iceland, which he started with a friend in 1970. |
0:53.4 | Fed up with their day jobs at Woolworths, they each invested £30 and began moonlighting in a retail |
0:58.9 | unit selling frozen food. Their boss wasn't too pleased when he found out they both got the sack, |
1:04.3 | but it was worth it. 52 years on, Iceland has over 1000 stores in the UK and Ireland, |
1:09.6 | with sales of around £3.5 billion. Under his leadership, the company has won numerous awards |
1:15.7 | from retail and consumer groups. Meanwhile, beyond the freezer aisle, he's helped raise some |
1:20.7 | £30 million for good causes, particularly Alzheimer's charities in honour of his late wife, |
1:26.5 | Rihannath, who named that first shop in 1970. He's had downs as well as ups at the company he |
1:32.2 | started, including being fired and setting up a rival venture before being asked to return, |
1:36.8 | eventually buying back the business, taking it into family ownership once again in 2020. |
1:42.1 | He says, I'm an ideas man, if 5% of my ideas benefit the business, I consider that a good result, |
1:48.3 | so long as the other 95 don't do too much serious damage. Mark and Walker, welcome to |
1:53.3 | Desert Island Discs. So you've often said that with 2% of the grocery market, Iceland shouldn't |
1:58.8 | really be here. Why do you think it's still around more than 50 years after you've created it? |
2:03.3 | We understand the business, you know, more supermarkets. You can't tell me who the boss is, |
... |
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