Lars Olofsson must be missing the tranquillity of the lake view from his former office at Nestlé’s headquarters in Vevey. The Swede spent 32 years at the Swiss multinational climbing to the top of the world’s largest food company.

He had been tipped as one of the three main internal candidates to become chief executive. The job went to Paul Bulcke. The other unsuccessful candidate, Paul Polman, left to take charge of Unilever. Mr Olofsson found it difficult to resist an approach to take over as chief executive of Carrefour, the world’s second-largest retailer after Walmart.