Criticism of Tesco firms, including Tesco and Asda, said they shared shoppers' "anger and outrage". Whitbread vowed to remedy the unacceptable situation on 26 February . The Food Standards Agency's (FSA) chief executive, Catherine Brown also said "it is unlikely we will ever know" how many unwittingly ate horse meat. On 22 May 2007 the BBC's "Whistleblower" programme showed undercover footage detailing breaches of food hygiene rules in a branch of Tesco. The Whistleblower reporter applied for a job following a tip-off from a former employee. Breaches included the sale of products after their sell-by date; allegations that the company illegally and sold
Tesco biofuels, offering petrol-bioethanol and diesel-biodiesel blends instead of pure petrol and diesel at their petrol stations, and now offering Greenergy 100% biodiesel at many shops in the southeast of the United Kingdom. In 1998, Tesco and Esso (part of Exxonmobil) formed a business alliance that included several petrol filling stations on lease from Esso, with Tesco operating the attached shops under their Express format. In turn, Esso operates the forecourts and sells their fuel via the Tesco shop. As of 2013, there were 200 joint Tesco Express/Esso sites in the UK. In 2018, Tesco launched a separate budget chain, Jack's,