Store of the Week: Tesco Streatham

It’s the second time you’ve won. How have you done it this time? Here, it’s totally about the community. Before we opened this store last November, we worked with Jobcentre Plus to train and employ 76 local people who were out of work. Our success is partly down to them, for their energy and drive. And the management team are just so good too! We all learn by association.

What are you doing to engage with the wider community? For the next two weeks we’re running Fork to Food sessions where 30 kids come to the café and learn, for free, how to cook basics. The course is completely booked up. Today it’s vegetarian food, tomorrow is cooking halal - it gets more challenging every day. I’m also doing the Lambeth Walk for local charity Lambeth Giving Fund.

Tell me about the wider redevelopment work? It’s a big community project. As part of the scheme, the area got a leisure centre, housing, an ice rink, a new bus station. Within the store we have an optician, a café, even a pizza parlour. I actually delivered pizzas myself to the apartments above the shop the other day.

Are customer numbers rising as a result? The 250 flats above the store will open in September 2014, so until then I don’t think we will have reached our full potential. I’m planning an open evening for residents, to include a fashion show, food tastings, drinks etc. I’m also waiting for the August Bank Holiday and our first proper Christmas run-up to really measure our success.

What’s the biggest draw right now? As ever our world foods section. To make sure we had our finger on the pulse we took a trip to Brixton Market [about a mile down the road] and made sure we stocked what the local community wanted. So we have yams, mooli, peppers in the vegetable section and stocked up on red snapper, sea bream and tilapia. We’re relatively competitive in this area.