Tesco has swung the axe on the senior management team of its health and wellbeing business as part of the grocery giant’s plan to re-evaluate its core offer, it has emerged.
Tesco has parted company with execs including Amee Chande, the managing director of Nutri Centre, casting doubt on the future of the health business, for which the retailer had outlined ambitious growth plans just last year.
The grocer said in December it was planning the biggest investment it had made in health and wellbeing in 20 years during 2015, but a source claims Tesco is now undecided on the future direction of its health business.
Nutri Centre has a flagship standalone store near Regent’s Park and it is understood Tesco had mulled a roll out of up to 200-300 standalone shops.
It is thought there were also ambitions to introduce “hundreds” of Nutri Centre concessions into Tesco stores as part of an aggressive roll-out plan that would allow Tesco to take on Holland & Barrett in the health sector.
A Tesco spokesman said the changes were part of an ongoing “review of the business” as chief executive Dave Lewis re-evaluates its core proposition in light of a sustained period of sales declines as well as the accounting scandal.
That review has also involved selling off the Blinkbox entertainment business and Tesco is also seeking a buyer for its Dunnhumby data business.
Along with Chande, Tesco health and wellbeing head Sinead Ragonesi-Browne, health and wellness category director Lucy Williams, and Dunnhumby head of extended and digital brands Etain Seymour, who led “embryonic health initiatives”, have also left the company in recent weeks.
Their departures coincide with Tesco health and wellbeing managing director David Wood leaving the business in March.
Tesco has parted ways with a string of high profile executives in the last 12 months including its chief executive Philip Clarke, its chairman Richard Broadbent and its UK boss Chris Bush.
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