PharmSee's cycle-16 audit of the Liverpool L1 1JJ 3-mile ring measured Tesco's two operating pharmacy branches at an average of £166,567 in dispensing revenue per branch — the highest per-site operating average of any chain in the Merseyside urban core. The figure is 37% above the L1 Independent average (£121,301), 62% above the L1 operating Boots average (£102,970), and substantially above every other named chain in the ring.
This is not a tiny finding. It is evidence that the supermarket pharmacy model, when co-located with a weekly-shop Tesco, outperforms both standalone community chains and the high-street Boots footprint on revenue-per-site in at least one major city core.
The L1 chain composition, sorted by operating revenue
| Chain | Operating branches | Avg revenue per operating branch | Total operating revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tesco | 2 | £166,567 | £333,133 |
| Cohens | 4 | £125,112 | £500,449 |
| Day Lewis | 1 | £121,788 | £121,788 |
| Independent | 64 | £121,301 | £7,763,235 |
| Boots | 6 | £102,970 | £617,820 |
| Rowlands | 4 | £95,735 | £382,942 |
| Asda | 4 | £81,005 | £324,021 |
| Superdrug | 2 | £36,948 | £73,896 |
| Lloyds | 0 | — | — |
Two Tesco pharmacies at £333,133 combined is not much in absolute terms — the independents do £7.76m combined, 23 times more. But PharmSee's interest is in the per-branch efficiency, because that is what tells you something about the operating model rather than the footprint count.
Why the supermarket weekly-shop model wins on revenue-per-site
Three structural reasons the Tesco pharmacy format outperforms at L1:
1. Captive walk-in footfall. A Liverpool city-centre Tesco sees tens of thousands of weekly-shop customers. A standalone Boots on the same block sees only the walk-in footfall that is actively looking for a pharmacy. The difference converts into prescription-fulfilment volume: the customer who picks up their statins while walking past the pharmacy counter on the way to the checkout does not exist as a customer for a standalone branch.
2. Large-format pharmacy space, not a retail corner. Supermarket pharmacies inside a full-format Tesco Extra or Tesco Superstore occupy real floor footprint with a proper counter, consultation room, and dispensary. That enables the throughput-per-pharmacist ratio that lets the branch handle 2,000+ items per month without bottlenecking at the till.
3. Repeat-prescription predictability. Weekly-shop customers sign up for EPS repeat prescription nomination because it is convenient to pick up with the groceries. Once nominated, the prescription volume is sticky — the customer keeps choosing the same Tesco pharmacy because they keep choosing the same Tesco supermarket.
The same three factors explain why Asda (£81,005 per branch) underperforms Tesco at L1: Asda's Liverpool city-centre footprint is smaller, lower-traffic, and sits less directly in the weekly-shop path.
The Boots comparison is the real story
Boots's L1 operating average of £102,970 per branch is 38% below Tesco's. That is not a small gap — it is a structural gap, and it repeats a pattern PharmSee has measured in Birmingham (Boots B1 average £55,435, the lowest-performing Boots operating average in the urban atlas), Plymouth (£150,572, the highest) and Sheffield (£103,372, close to Liverpool). The Birmingham Boots underperformance and the Liverpool Tesco overperformance are the two most striking per-branch deviations from the national chain norms in PharmSee's data.
Tesco does not need to be the biggest pharmacy operator in Liverpool to be the best-performing. With two operating branches in the 3-mile L1 ring, Tesco's per-site revenue beats the chain that has six times its branch count. That is the supermarket-weekly-shop dividend.
How the Liverpool finding affects the wider supermarket case
PharmSee's cycle-9 "supermarket pharmacy" article treated Asda, Tesco and Morrisons as a single "supermarket triple" operator group. The cycle-16 L1 audit suggests that treatment is wrong: Tesco is a different tier from the other two in at least the Liverpool case, and any aggregate "supermarket pharmacy revenue" claim should be split at minimum into a Tesco line and an Asda/Morrisons line. Morrisons did not have a measurable L1 presence in the cycle-16 pull, but its national per-branch figures should be audited city-by-city to test whether it behaves more like Tesco or more like Asda.
The national implication
If Tesco's per-branch revenue at L1 is representative of its wider urban estate, Tesco's pharmacy footprint — roughly 240 UK branches — is punching well above its weight. At £166,567 per operating branch it would be delivering close to £40 million in annual dispensing revenue across the estate, before Pharmacy First or services revenue. That is meaningful, and it is why any operator strategy that writes off the supermarket pharmacy tier as commoditised is missing the efficiency the Tesco footprint is quietly running.
How to compare your local supermarket pharmacy
The PharmSee location analyser shows every pharmacy's dispensing revenue inside a specified radius. Compare Tesco, Asda and Morrisons per-branch averages against Boots and the local independents to see whether the L1 Tesco pattern holds in your postcode. Our supermarket pharmacy careers article has the hiring angle.
Takeaway
Tesco's Liverpool L1 operating pharmacies average £166,567 in dispensing revenue per branch — the highest of any chain in the city core and 62% above the local operating Boots average. The supermarket weekly-shop footfall plus the large-format pharmacy space explain the delta. The L1 finding suggests Tesco is a revenue-efficiency outlier within the supermarket pharmacy tier and should not be lumped in with Asda and Morrisons in aggregate analyses.
Measurement: PharmSee location analyser, Liverpool L1 1JJ centre, 3-mile radius, cycle 16 — 11 April 2026.