Black Country chicken tycoon Ranjit Boparan takes Tesco's Giraffe restaurants under his wing

The UK's biggest grocer has been selling off fringe operations, such as its Dobbies garden centres, as it concentrates on getting its main supermarket business back on track.

Mr Boparan, who started out as a Wolverhampton's butcher's assistant and now has an estimated fortune of £430 million, already owns the Harry Ramsden fish and chip shop chain. He is also the boss of Fox's Biscuits and Goodfella's pizza owner 2 Sisters, which has major factories in West Bromwich, Wolverhampton and Smethwick>

He will pick up 54 stand-alone Giraffe restaurants, three of which are within Tesco stores.

Tesco is not revealing the price it secured for the Giraffe business.

But in its last set of accounts, for the 12 months to March last year, it revealed a loss of £4.1m as it opened new restaurants and wrote down the value of some existing sites.

Sales at the family friendly chain, which was bought by Tesco's former chief executive Phil Clarke as part of his plan to make the supermarket's large stores more exciting, rose nearly 24 per cent to £55m.

Tesco's current chief executive, Dave Lewis, said: "As we stabilise the business in the UK, we continue to focus on where we can best serve the needs of our customers, while ensuring our business remains sustainable for the long-term.

"Giraffe is a much-loved brand, and while casual dining remains an important part of the shopping trip for many of our customers, we will continue to meet these needs through our Tesco Cafés and other providers.

"I'd like to thank colleagues from Giraffe for all their hard work in serving our customers and we look forward to seeing it develop in the future."

Tesco has also offloaded its Turkish operations.

The disposals represent a continued shift in strategy under chief executive Dave Lewis, who is attempting to turn Tesco supermarkets around after years of decline under previous management.

The sale of Tesco's Turkish operation Kipa to Migros will net the supermarket £30 million.

Mr Lewis said: "The sale of Kipa reflects the particular strategic challenge we have faced in Turkey as a small regional player in a highly competitive market

" It removes the need for the sustained investment required to enable the business to compete independently, allowing us to focus on improving profitability in Central Europe and continuing to grow our businesses in South East Asia."