The way in which supermarket giant Tesco runs its supply chain has been noted by a journalist.
James Hall, writing for the Telegraph, has said that the British shopping giant has a "trading outpost" in Hong Kong that is responsible for a whole range of issues related to the non-food market.
Named Tesco International Sourcing, the store uses 800 suppliers over 1,200 factories to source items, in what Hall named a "modern equivalent of the East India Company".
Its operations are co-ordinated centrally, with goods procured from 44 countries -although the majority come from Hong Kong and China.
To keep costs down, all goods that are shipped out are placed in the same boxes with instructions written in six languages.
Audits are regularly carried out on suppliers to check they are ethical, with the auditors themselves being the target of audits so as to avoid trouble.
Tesco began in the east-end of London in 1919, and has since gone on to be one of the biggest names in the UK retail sector.
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