IF anyone was in any doubt about the task facing Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis then its record £6.4 billion loss has underscored the difficulties the former Unilever man has encountered.

It is a classic tactic for a new chief executive to take major writedowns at the first available opportunity - kitchen sinking or taking a bath as it is known - while tacitly blaming the problems on predecessors.

To Mr Lewis's credit he has not been overly critical of the previous regime at Tesco but his brutal cost cutting to date suggests he has found plenty of fat to trim.

Amid the gloom Mr Lewis was very keen to point out that sales volumes in the UK actually grew in the final quarter of Tesco's financial year and the business has added many thousands of customer facing staff to improve service levels in its stores.

However with margins in the UK supermarkets sliding to just one per cent it will be finely balanced whether Tesco can continue to offer competitive prices for customers and maintain satisfactory levels of profits for shareholders.

Worryingly conditions in the wider market look set to remain tough with changing consumer shopping habits and a growing challenge from Aldi and Lidl.

Among the crumbs of comfort Edinburgh based Tesco Bank was once again a solid performer with a healthy increase in customer numbers, lending and underlying profit.

For Mr Lewis it will be a case of every little helps.