"I was actually made aware by an article in The Grocer," she says, referring to a story in October 2013 in which we revealed Tesco was asking suppliers to pay a premium to guarantee the best shelf positions. An email seen by The Grocer from Tesco's cooking ingredients buying manager James Marshall said he would "like to request you pay a rate card for shelf positioning (applies to existing and new products)". The rate card included on the email set out charges of £30 per product per store for space on the two key eye-level shelves and £15 for the top shelves and two mid-fixture shelves. Ironically, it came shortly after then-UK MD Chris Bush and commercial director John Scouler - who both subsequently left amid the scandal of Tesco's £326m financial black hole and the SFO investigation - promised a "new era" in supplier relations at Tesco.