Jack Cohen, the son of Jewish migrants from Poland, founded Tesco in 1919 when he began to sell war-surplus groceries from a stall at Well Street Market, Hackney, in the East End of London.

[14] After experimenting with his first permanent indoor market stall at Tooting in November 1930, Jack Cohen opened the first Tesco shop in September 1931 at 54 Watling Avenue, Burnt Oak, Edgware, Middlesex.

[14] The first self-service shop opened in St Albans in 1948 (which remained operational until 2010 before relocating to larger premises on the same street, with a period as a Tesco Metro),[18] and the first supermarket in Maldon in 1956.

[29] The company started to expand the range of products it sold during the 1960s to include household goods and clothing under the Delamare brand, and in 1974 opened its first petrol station.

[40][41] In 2013, Tesco confirmed that it was pulling out of its US market (Fresh & Easy) stores in April, after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, at a reported cost of £1.2 billion.

[48] In 2016, Tesco confirmed it was seeking to sell Dobbies Garden Centres, Giraffe Restaurants, and Harris + Hoole to concentrate on its main supermarket business.

[102] Tesco took full ownership of the business from its founders Nick, Andrew and Laura Tolley in February 2016,[103] and agreed in June 2016 to sell it to Caffè Nero.

[104] Giraffe is a restaurant chain in the United Kingdom which Tesco purchased in March 2013 as part of a strategy of making use of excess space in its shops.

[107] In 2018, Tesco launched a separate budget chain, Jack's, to compete with Lidl and Aldi; the first store opened in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire in September 2018.

[123] In 2008 Tesco announced its intention to invest an initial £60m (US$115m) to open a wholesale cash-and-carry business based in Mumbai with the assistance of the Tata Group.

[124] In 2014, the joint venture between Tesco and Tata was confirmed, where investment by the earlier was reportedly 140 million dollars, thus becoming the first foreign supermarket to enter the country.

Tesco also operated a "Vin Plus" outlet in Calais, selling wine, beer, and spirits, which closed on 30 August 2010, due to the decline of the booze cruise.

In November 2019, having suffered years of net losses and despite extensive cost-cutting and attempts at streamlining of its business model, Tesco announced its intent to sell all of its operations in Poland.

[153] Tesco entered the United States grocery market in 2007 through the opening of a new chain of convenience stores, named Fresh & Easy, on the West Coast (Arizona, California, and Nevada).

[155] The deal included Tesco loaning the venture £80m and retaining an option to buy back a stake in the business if Yucaipa succeeded in turning around the group's performance.

[166] In 2011 the retailer reported its poorest six-monthly UK sales figures for 20 years, attributed to consumers' reduced non-food spending and a growth in budget rivals.

[181] Tesco made a commitment to corporate social responsibility in the form of contributions of 1.87% in 2006 of its pre-tax profits to charities and local community organisations.

[189] In June 2011, Tesco announced that it was working with 2degrees Network to create an online hub as part of its target to reduce its supply chain carbon footprint by 30% by 2020.

[190] In September 2011, a Greenpeace report revealed that Tesco supermarkets in China were selling vegetables that contained pesticides at levels exceeding the legal limit, or were illegal.

[192] Adverts in the early 1990s had a man called David, portrayed by Dudley Moore, on the hunt for free-range chickens from France and discovering many goods from around the world to purchase for Tesco.

[196] In November 2013, Tesco announced it would introduce face-scanning technology developed by Amscreen at all of its 450 UK petrol stations to target advertisements to individual customers.

Writer and former MP Jit Siratranont faced up to two years in jail and a £16.4 million libel damages claim for saying that Tesco was expanding aggressively at the expense of small local retailers.

[207] In May 2021, undercover footage captured showed piglets deemed too small or too weak for the abattoir being hammered to death by farm workers or being swung against a concrete floor to be killed at a Tesco supplier.

In December 2007, Asda, Sainsbury's, and the former Safeway admitted that they acted covertly against the interests of consumers while publicly claiming that they were supporting 5,000 farmers recovering from the foot-and-mouth crisis.

[218] The scheme, identified by British magazine Private Eye, utilised offshore holding companies in Luxembourg and partnership agreements to reduce corporation tax liability by up to £50 million a year.

[218] Another scheme previously identified by Private Eye involved depositing £1 billion in a Swiss partnership, and then loaning that money to overseas Tesco shops, so that profit could be transferred indirectly through interest payments.

Prime Minister David Cameron called this "unacceptable", with products showing 29.1% horse meat in the "Value" range burger, which were supposed to be beef.

[232] Tesco has been targeted by protesters complaining the supermarket chain sells goods made in Israel, with most complaints being about products emanating from Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

"[234] The UK Groceries Code Adjudicator found in a 2015–16 investigation into Tesco that some suppliers paid "large sums of money in exchange for category captaincy or participation in a price review".

[242][243] In June 2024, legal firm Fieldfisher said on Friday it had issued letters of claim for breach of the Consumer Protection Act over own-brand sandwiches purchased in Tesco and Asda.