He came to speak at a Checkout conference in the 70s and I met him. The following day he came out with me to our store in Walkinstown and he became really enthusiastic about the sort of thing we were doing, because he was always looking for new ideas. He was always introducing people to each other so they could learn from one another; and he was excited by anything he saw that he thought would be of use to someone else.

What drove him?

He came to the conclusion that innovation in our business didn't come from big public companies, but from family businesses and businesses that weren't too worried about the next stock market quotation. When he said this to the chairman of Coca Cola, he was invited to become part of the new Coca Cola research group. Every three years he selected 15 different retailers and mentored them - first in America, then in Europe, then in South America and finally also in Asia.

When he died last year Coca Cola took out a full page ad in the Chicago Tribune.

Did you learn anything about leadership from him?

As he went around all the stores, he never criticised. He concentrated on the good things. He called bad companies "chorus girls". When someone goes to Broadway and has fine legs they can get a job in the chorus, but there's only one star. They're out at the front and they stay in business far longer, and they make a lot more money. He'd say - "You don't want to be a chorus girl, the same as all the others. You want to be a star."

What was his biggest affect on you?

About 20 years ago he brought me along with a delegation of American retailers to see a store in Nuremberg. The supermarket we were visiting was built alongside a sausage factory and it was the busiest supermarket in the world. There was only a glass wall between the factory and the supermarket and people were just queuing up to get these sausages. I just couldn't wait to get home so we could start making the sausages in the store in front of the public. And that's where the idea for the Superquinn sausage came from.

In conversation with Patrick Freyne