On Thursday, top retailer Tesco posts its first-quarter update, providing a chance to gauge how boss Dave Lewis’s turnaround is progressing.

The pace of change in grocery retail shows no signs of slowing down. Indeed, the pace even seems to be picking up.

In the last couple of weeks alone, Amazon has launched its Fresh business in the UK, while Asda boss Andy Clarke is preparing to stand down within weeks as the Walmart-owned grocer, like Tesco, seeks to accelerate.

And all that is on top of the planned tie-up later this year between Sainsbury’s and Argos, designed to be a transformational deal.

Tesco has not stood still, but much of the focus has been on restoring focus.

In the last few weeks there have been the disposals of its Turkish business, the Giraffe restaurant chain and – just last Friday – garden centre Dobbies.

The emphasis on the core UK business is essential, and has shown some signs of bearing fruit.

At the time of Tesco’s prelims in April the grocer was able to celebrate a UK like-for-like advance of 0.9% in the final quarter, a rise in transactions and volumes and a customer satisfaction score up 5%.

Tesco can also take some solace from the latest Kantar market share data for the 12 weeks to May 22.

Kantar reported: “While the big four are struggling to keep their market share what’s clear is that consumers aren’t flocking away from their stores – their combined shopper numbers have dropped only 0.2% in the latest 12 weeks.” 

Kantar also said: “Tesco saw signs of stabilising in comparison to historic declines over the past two years, showing the smallest drop in sales of 1%.”

Tesco remains under pressure, that is clear.

But in such torrid times, if on Thursday it can once again provide evidence of stabilisation then that will be judged a decent performance.