Maybe that's why, last spring, the Arkansas-based retail behemoth asked the citizens of Inglewood, Calif., to hand it the reins of government.

Mr Clarke now has to prove that investing in the UK will improve the shopper experience and turn around the retail behemoth's fortunes.

Can it really be beyond the wit of the retail behemoths to put something local in the punters' bags?

In the last year or so, Mills has been seeking to expand beyond its base network of exurban retail behemoths.

SAM WALTON, the charismatic founder of Wal-Mart, built a single discount store in Rogers, Ark., into a retail behemoth.

Today, Sir Terence, at the age of 56, is the chairman of a 900-outlet retail behemoth, Storehouse P.L.C., which employs 35,000 people worldwide.

The American retail behemoth has owned Asda since 1999 but sources say it has begun exerting its influence in a more meaningful way over the past 18 months to two years.

A quick informal poll of shoppers illustrates the challenges ahead not just for this retail behemoth, but all the major supermarket players.

Now, they have to go back to basics: creating products, persuading consumers that they want them and getting retail behemoths like Wal-Mart to carry them.

Yet Mary Baxter, leader of the anti-Tesco brigade, assures me that tomatoes from the greengrocer can be half the price of those in the retail behemoth.