CHESHUNT, U.K. - Tesco CEO Dave Lewis is stepping out in a new interview this week after a report by Grocery Code Adjudicator (GCA) found that the retailer was using its position as one of the U.K.’s biggest retailers to pressure suppliers into accepting delayed or unmade payments.

Addressing the scandal, Lewis made his apology public in an interview with the Belfast Telegraph.

“We accept everything that’s in the report,” he admitted during the interview. “Since January of last year we’ve drawn a line under some of our practices that were referred to in the report. And we’ve set about changing this business—for the last 15 months that's what we’ve been doing.” 

Watch the Belfast Telegraph's full interview with Lewis below:

Since the revelation of the report, Tesco has implemented fourteen new initiatives that the company says will improve the way it works with suppliers, according to a press release.

A few notable new initiatives include:

• Carried out a comprehensive review of how we work with all our 3,000 supplier partners across the UK.
• Established a Supplier Network of over 2,500 suppliers to improve communication, share ideas and address common challenges.
• Started an independent Supplier Protector Line and Colleague Protector Line to encourage a 'speak up culture.’
• Retrained all Product colleagues in the UK on the Groceries Supply Code of Practice.
• Changed the way it buys and sells as a business, to focus on the cost price of products wherever possible rather than commercial income.
• Reduced the number of ways it calculates commercial income – from 24 to five this year, and targeting three next year.

“I’ve personally visited and spoken to a large number of both our large and small suppliers since I’ve started with the business,” Dave concluded in the interview. “As we’ve set about reenergizing that relationship, we’ve apologized privately and publicly for the behavior that was going on in our business at that time and we’ve set out a completely different way of wanting to work together and I’m delighted by the way our supplier have engaged with that.” 

Keep returning to AndNowUKnow for more on this story as it develops.

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