My Week... by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou (as told to Bill Tush)

Perhaps you knew I was Greek. What you might not know is that my birthday falls on Valentine’s Day, and that’s quite appropriate. Whether it’s bringing the romance of the skies to hen parties via easyJet or simplifying the fiendishly complex cheese on toast industry (easyPizza), I have always striven to bring my special Greek love to the hoi polloi (a Greek term).

And thus it is with easyFoodstore, my brilliant new retail concept, which consists of acquiring uncondemned food extremely cheaply on the grey market and then selling it for a marginally higher price from a derelict bus depot on the North Circular. What’s not to love?

Of course, it was simply impossible to foresee the consequences of combining hysterical publicity with 1970s prices and inadequate stock and staffing. While luxury players like Aldi and Lidl can afford to have people working on frivolities like replenishment, this is not part of the easyFood concept. We may get our customers to pay to stock shelves before ransacking them.

Another trick will be streamlining the range from 76 SKUs to 40 by eliminating luxuries like soap, and introducing measures to prevent local c-stores from sourcing all their crap from us instead of having to go to a pub car park to meet Angelos in his white Transit. Like we did.

Anyway, the basic principle is a sure-fire winner. There are a lot more poor people than healthy ones, and all the research shows they don’t care much about what they eat, or which decade it was processed in. So expect to see an easyFoodstore springing up in a lock-up near you soon. And before you dismiss the whole venture, just remember the entire Greek economy is founded on such entrepreneurialism!