The Bolland legacy isn’t dead. It just needs further tightening up. So far he has kept to the real retail basics; simplifying ranging, innovation in own brand, further work on IT and supply chain, and improving customer service.

What is it about balsamic vinegar? Despite hardly ever using it, we have three varieties at home. And I remember, in the middle of a complex due diligence meeting during the Safeway merger, Morrisons’ then trading director turning to her Safeway equivalent to say: “What we don’t understand is, why do you stock balsamic vinegar?”

Suddenly the whole problem of the cultural gap between Morrisons and middle class British consumers was laid bare. And what an expensive gap that later proved to be for Morrison shareholders.

So here we are six years on and I was blithely listening to the new Morrisons chief executive, Dalton Philips, speaking about his first six months, when I was jolted into life by hearing that balsamic vinegar is once again being singled out for criticism.

Apparently some Morrisons stores now stock 16 varieties and that is too many. At last, I realised - this is why Ken Morrison was so ungracious about Marc Bolland not being a real retailer when he left for Marks & Spencer. He had clearly spotted the middle class condiment range.

Fortunately Philips was not advocating regrouping back to ‘Bradford ranging’. He was using it merely as an example of the space opportunity available if ranges were tightened up.

Indeed, I think this is his general theme. The Bolland legacy isn’t dead. It just needs further tightening up. So far he has kept to the real retail basics; simplifying ranging, innovation in own brand, further work on IT and supply chain, and improving customer service.

Perhaps the slogan ‘Different and better than ever’ lacks a certain charisma, but the three-point plan is difficult to object to; grow the top line, go for efficiencies and look for new growth.

Of course it’s the new growth that attracts interest. Philips promised a fully costed strategy in six months’ time, but he has already teased us with four opportunities; core grocery (presumably retailing basics again), more in-house food production, testing a convenience store format and online.

He has stressed that all of these need to be profitable. My guess is that he is likely to find that convenience stores can be profitable as long as you can charge high enough prices. But even a profitable 3,000 sq ft store carries costs that mean that you need an army of them to make as much as one superstore.

As for online, he will probably find that properly costed home delivery of food is not very profitable (sorry, new Ocado shareholders) and yet the alternative, click and collectfor food (as opposed to non-food) is not particularly valued by customers.

To me, the real test of most retail strategies is whether they first concentrate on retail basics and, secondly, whether later they just get overcooked, such as by proliferating range or spending too much capital. I call that the balsamic vinegar test.

Simon Laffin independent retail adviser and non-executive director