{"id":86749,"date":"2025-10-17T14:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T14:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/86749\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T14:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T14:49:10","slug":"we-need-houses-and-houses-need-shops-im-very-positive-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/86749\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We need houses, and houses need shops. I\u2019m very positive\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The \u201cBoss\u201d label on the back of Tesco Ireland<\/a> chief Geoff Byrne<\/a>\u2019s jeans seems apt as he strides across the upstairs atrium of the College Green Hotel in Dublin towards a meeting room for our interview. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the look I\u2019m going for,\u201d he jokes. \u201cThere\u2019s a subliminal message in there.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Hugo Boss jeans look a good fit \u2013 as he does, as the newish leader of the Irish arm of the British supermarket chain. <\/p>\n

In June, Byrne formally became chief executive of Tesco Ireland, having filled the role last year on an interim basis while his predecessor Natasha Adams was on leave. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a big role within corporate Ireland. Latest filed accounts for Tesco\u2019s Irish subsidiary show it made a pretax profit of \u20ac120.3 million on turnover of \u20ac3.26 billion. And it has a 23 per cent market share here.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a high-volume, low-margin business. Some 80 per cent of its overall sales are from food and drink, with non-food items making up the balance. <\/p>\n

There are about 1.8 million \u201cactive\u201d members of its Clubcard loyalty scheme. <\/p>\n

Byrne says Tesco\u2019s biggest challenge right now is \u201ckeeping prices down for customers\u201d, with inflation in grocery prices running at about 5 per cent<\/a>, according to recent data from the Central Statistics Office. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working really hard at that while also trying to keep our staff and colleagues happy to provide enough reward to keep it meaningful for them, while giving a bit back to your shareholders.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0From working in a family store to leading Lidl IrelandOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a juggling act. <\/p>\n

Byrne says the spike in grocery prices has been driven by globally traded commodities such as cocoa, coffee, beef and dairy. \u201cIf you take them out of it, a lot of the other stuff is pretty much the same at the moment,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working hard not to pass on every price increase to our customers because that\u2019s our job. And if we do, we\u2019ll delay it as long as we possibly can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite a sharp rise in beef prices, Byrne says its volume beef sales are \u201cslightly positive\u201d year on year. <\/p>\n

\u201cNow, people are trading down to cheaper cuts but I\u2019ve been surprised how well our sales of steaks have held up. Then again, I guess the cost of steak in a restaurant is very expensive now. <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of local hotels and pubs have stopped doing them. But I come from a farming community and it\u2019s important that farmers get paid.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Wingstop lands in Ireland with first restaurant in Liffey ValleyOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Tesco Ireland is very much in growth mode, allocating \u20ac100 million in capital a year for the next five years to add 10 shops annually to its chain. <\/p>\n

With 185 stores in the Republic (it also has 45 in the North), you might think we\u2019re at saturation point in terms of the number of Tesco shops that can be supported here. <\/p>\n

Not so, says Byrne. \u201cI think we\u2019re a long way off saturation point. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy ambition would be that every consumer in Ireland would be able to choose to go to a Tesco. Whether they do or not is up to them, but I want to put Tesco in their way at least.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve done 40 [new stores] in the past five years. The plan is to try and open 10 stores a year going forward, for at least the next three, four, five years. I\u2019m confident we\u2019ll get to 10 this year.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cAny town with a population of 6,000 or 7,000 people I think should have a Tesco. Certainly ones with 10,000. I could take you around the country and there would be 30 or 40 large towns where there\u2019s no Tesco.\u201d <\/p>\n

As a young lad, I worked in a fruit and veg shop and I loved it. If you like people and banter and a bit of craic, and working in a bustling business, retail is a good place to get on. It\u2019s also very meritocratic and you meet all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds<\/p>\n

He then rattles off a list of large towns where Tesco has no presence (Enniscorthy, Dungarvan and Carrigaline among them), not to mention Kilkenny city, which has long been a source of frustration for the supermarket giant. \u201cWe have an Express store in the middle of it but we don\u2019t have a big supermarket,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we have one going through the planning process, so fingers crossed we\u2019ll get through our speedy planning process. At least we have a site and a planning application.\u201d <\/p>\n

In addition, he sees a \u201clot of opportunity\u201d for its smaller format Express stores, especially in areas where new apartments are being built. <\/p>\n

\u201cExpress has the most potential. I don\u2019t see us rolling out any big hypermarkets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tesco also recently launch Whoosh, it\u2019s online service promising deliveries within 45 minutes. Byrne says this has performed so well that the retailer \u201caccelerated the Dublin roll-out\u201d by a number of months.<\/p>\n

It has also launched in Cork and Galway, which were originally slated for next year. Typically people buy 10-11 items, which are sourced from Tesco shops locally, allowing the company to sweat existing assets, and are sent to customers via Deliveroo<\/a>, Byrne says. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0JD Sports to open for business at Fairgreen in Mullingar, Co WestmeathOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Online shopping is now \u201capproaching 10 per cent\u201d of Tesco\u2019s Irish business, making it the biggest player in that segment of the grocery market here, he adds. <\/p>\n

Byrne joined Tesco (then known as Quinnsworth) straight from school as a trainee manager on March 15th, 1989. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was in school I had worked a couple of summers part-time in Quinnsworth and I liked it. I had a great store manager, Mrs Murphy, who encouraged me after the Leaving Cert that if I didn\u2019t want to go to college I could go back and they\u2019d get me a job as a management trainee. And I\u2019ve been here ever since.\u201d <\/p>\n

He started in a store in D\u00fan Laoghaire, which also happens to be the location of Tesco\u2019s head office, bringing him full circle within the business 36 years later. <\/p>\n

He was made a store manager at 24 in Arklow, Co Wicklow. Tesco bought the business in 1997, with Byrne moving on to ever bigger stores in Greystones and the Square in Tallaght before becoming an area manager. <\/p>\n

He says Quinnsworth was a \u201cbrilliant business with fantastic people in it but was probably always a bit underinvested\u201d. The sale to Tesco brought a \u201clot of innovation, a lot of investment and a lot of professionalism\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really did change the business. We had about 60 stores [as Quinnsworth] and within 10 years we had well over 100. I was lucky to be a young guy in the right place at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why retail?<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a young lad, I worked in a fruit and veg shop and I loved it. If you like people and banter and a bit of craic, and working in a bustling business, retail is a good place to get on. It\u2019s also very meritocratic and you meet all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s too tough a business with too thin a margin not to be a meritocracy. If you\u2019re smart and you work hard, you can get on. I\u2019ve always liked that.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Irish inflation jumps to highest level in 18 months as food prices surgeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He\u2019s sanguine about the various payroll costs (higher minimum wage<\/a>, pension auto enrolment<\/a> and sick leave<\/a> measures) that the Government has forced on employers in recent times, drawing the ire of business lobby groups such as Ibec and Isme. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all manageable,\u201d he says. \u201cI would regard us a very good employer. If you take [pension] auto enrolment, we already had a good pension scheme so we\u2019re not starting from zero there. The same with our sick pay, which is very good. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe average (hourly) rate of pay in a Tesco store now is about \u20ac17.60. Our staff have to live too.\u201d <\/p>\n

Byrne grew up in Avoca, Co Wicklow. His parents were both \u201cAughrim people\u201d, his father an electrician and his mother a hairdresser.<\/p>\n

At the time it was a \u201csleepy village\u201d, home to a copper mine and later the location for the popular BBC TV series Ballykissangel. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor years there was tourism from Ballykissangel. It got another run in Australia a couple of years ago and people started showing up from Australia wanting to get pictures taken.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Dawn Meats faces paying up to \u20ac12.3m more for New Zealand dealOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Byrne got to rub shoulders with a young actor called Colin Farrell<\/a>, who spent time on the show in the late 1990s. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a nice fella. He would go to the local pub for a pint in the evening and play some pool with the lads. I got to play a game with him in Fitzgerald\u2019s of Avoca. He was good.\u201d <\/p>\n

Did Farrell win? \u201cHe did, yeah.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hurling was more Byrne\u2019s sport, thanks to the efforts of a local sergeant who hailed from Clare. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was worst corner forward in the county but I enjoyed it.\u201d <\/p>\n

In spite of all the price challenges at the minute, Byrne is \u201cpositive\u201d about the future for Tesco Ireland. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t stop going to shops, they may trade up or down on products but it\u2019s up to us to put the right products in front of them. I do think the inflation will tail off and start to normalise in the back end of the year and take some pressure off consumers.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Irish economy is \u201crobust and strong\u201d, with a growing population\u201d, he adds \u2013 all positives for a retailer. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to build a lot of houses in the coming years and those houses will needs shops. Overall, I\u2019m very positive.\u201d <\/p>\n

Christmas is just around the corner, although the sales uplift is less pronounced in groceries than for other retailers. <\/p>\n

\u201cSales would be up 4-5 per cent in the run-up and then Christmas week you double your sales. But there\u2019s only so much people can eat.\u201d <\/p>\n

While Byrne is relatively new to his role as Irish chief, he does have 36 years in the locker with Tesco. Will this be his final role with the supermarket giant?<\/p>\n

\u201cI love what I\u2019m doing. I wouldn\u2019t put a time horizon on it. I\u2019ll do it as long as people want me to and as long as I\u2019m really enjoying doing it. Might as well.\u201d <\/p>\n

CV<\/p>\n

Name: Geoff Byrne<\/p>\n

Job: Chief executive, Tesco Ireland<\/p>\n

Age: 55 <\/p>\n

Lives: Avoca, Co Wicklow<\/p>\n

Family: Married, with three adult children <\/p>\n

Hobbies: Golf (14 handicap), hill walking and reading books. \u201cI\u2019m a bit of an anorak for history books. My wife tells me I need to lighten up and give my brain a rest so I read a bit more fiction now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Something we might expect: He shops in Tesco. \u201cNobody connected to me is allowed to shop anywhere else or they are out of the house for good. But I do visit the stores [of rivals] a lot. You will always learn something from your competitors, and if you think you won\u2019t you\u2019re probably in the wrong place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Something that might surprise: He played pool and had a pint with Colin Farrell, when the Irish film star was a member of the cast of BBC TV show Ballykissangel, which was filmed in his home village of Avoca, Co Wicklow. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The \u201cBoss\u201d label on the back of Tesco Ireland chief Geoff Byrne\u2019s jeans seems apt as he strides…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,14209,55621,61,60,4674,4013],"class_list":{"0":"post-86749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-colin-farrell","10":"tag-deliveroo","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-retail","14":"tag-tesco"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}