Jack Cohen created the name Tesco from letters in T.E. Stockwell’s name and his own surname, Cohen.
Cohen began selling groceries from a market stall in London’s East End in 1919. In the 1920s, he bought tea from the tea company T.E. Stockwell. The resulting combination of “TE” and part of “Cohen” produced the Tesco name.
The first Tesco-branded product was tea, sold in 1924. The business later expanded from market stalls into shops and supermarkets, becoming one of the United Kingdom’s major grocery retailers.
Tesco is therefore not an abbreviation for a descriptive phrase. Its name is a constructed blend linked to a supplier and the founder, rather than a place name or a reference to supermarket format.