People are only just realising what Tesco name stands for as name dates back 100 years

Unless you've been living under a rock, anyone in the UK is more than likely to recognise the Tesco brand at first sight - but fans of the leading supermarket are only just discovering the meaning behind its household name.

Tesco is the largest retailer in Britain, as millions of customers flock to their stores each year to get their weekly food shops done and dusted. We're all so used to seeing the big logo in our villages, towns and cities, with those big red letters and blue underline, that few of us have considered where the title actually came from.

Brand names become so etched into our minds that we don't spare them another thought. Now, people are baffled upon learning where Tesco's name derives from. It turns out the origin of the supermarket's title goes back over a century to the man who first set the store up.

Tesco was founded in 1919 by a man called Jack Cohen who was the son of Jewish migrants from Poland. Cohen first began his business by selling odd items from a stall in Hackney, London.

To get his first day's stock for the stall, he used demobilisation money from the Royal Flying Corp, which he was a part of during The Great War. The name Tesco first came to be as a result of Cohen buying a shipment of tea in 1923 from a man called Thomas Edward Stockwell.

Using the suppliers' initials, the entrepreneur made a label with 'TES' written on it and added the first two letters of his surname, to get Tesco. In 1929, Cohen opened his first store in Edgware, North London, and just 10 years later he had 100 stores. The brand blossomed and the Tesco name was recognised everywhere.

The first Tesco supermarket did not take long to appear as in 1958, in Essex. Initially Cohen wasn't keen on the supermarket-style of shopping, but soon came around and began to understand the crucial task of mass buying and selling goods. Explaining the evolution of the Tesco brand, from smaller shops to supermarkets, Tesco's website states: "The new format store included a counter service selling cheese, butter and meats weighed by sales assistants."

Cohen died in 1979 but his legacy certainly lives on as Tesco stores are found across most towns in the UK, with over 4,000 branches.

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