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Arjan I do agree with you wholeheartedly. My comparison to McDonalds was merely to respond to retailers on this thread saying that One Stop franchisee do not get cheaper bank charges. As a Londis retailer you can already benefit from a World Pay affinity merchant rate agreed by Booker.

You will know that there is a possibility that that affinity scheme COULD get better and with a bank behind them, Tesco COULD do a lot more. I was making a case for scale which does not exist in the One Stop franchise model.

I was not, Old Grocer, making any assessment on any of the Booker brands or how the retailers run their operations. Affinity schemes work when there is scale for the third-party service providers to get lots of business on the back of offering a discounted rate. Not if the retailer is a good or bad one. Booker/ Tesco have this scale particularly with shops and caterers to revisit and look at affinity and drive operating costs down if they so choose.

This deal is not all about how cheap you can get coke or confectionery. In my opinion it’s about a building a fresh food supply chain that allows retailers to have a credible, comparable fresh food offer similar to the multiples. This means acceptable margin for wholesaler, retailer and an acceptable rrp for the consumer.

More consolidation is coming, and the consumer is demanding more, to neglect operating costs as part of ‘win’ from the merger would be a grave mistake for Tesco/Booker and Co-Op/Nisa/Costcutter.