Thank you for downloading this program. I'm Evan Davis and in this edition of the bottom line,

I'm talking to three supermarket bosses about the rise of discount grocers, the impact they're

having on the way we shop and how they're affecting profit margins. Hello and welcome to the program.

Now one of the most interesting features of the business landscape is how sometimes the most invincible companies can suddenly find themselves looking vulnerable, from unassailable to ineffectual in double-quick time.

And a very striking recent example of that phenomenon is the UK supermarket sector.

Almighty Tesco has had a major fall, and the other big supermarkets

have been struggling too. Something is going on, more than one thing. What? Well, let's try and

answer that today. My guests are in charge of three of the smaller supermarket chain,

so let's meet them now. We'll start with Mark Price, managing director of Waitrose.

Just give us a little bit of history of Waitrose. Waitrose was set up by Mr. Waiter, a Mr. Rose and a Mr. Taylor.

You can probably guess who was the accountant. It was Mr. Taylor. So Mr. Waite and Mr. Rose joined their names together in 1904.

So the business is now over 110 years old. Right. And as a

supermarket now, it is seventh in market share terms, as I understand it, and actually has been

overtaken by the German discount as Aldi and Little. Not Little, but Aldi on total retail sales

is now bigger than Waitrose. If you look at

just grocery, then Waitrose is still bigger than Aldi. You personally have been in charge since 2007.

Just tell us about your career. I joined the John Lewis partnership in 1982 because we had two

golf courses and five ocean-going yachts and I thought it can't be a bad business to join. I worked in John Lewis for 16 years, then I moved to a corporate role, and I've been running weight trades for the last nine years. Do you still have golf courses and yachts in the company? We still have two wonderful golf courses, and we still have five ocean-going yachts, and we've got four country houses that our partners

can go and stay in. The whole point of the John Lewis partnership is that it's a fairer

form of doing business and so everybody shares in the profit and staying in the houses and using

the yachts. Thank you, Mark. Well, my next guest is Steve Murrell's chief executive of

cooperative food. Steve, the UK's fifth largest supermarket in market share.

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