Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Kicks Off 2011 With an Appeal to 'eatwell'


Private Brand Showcase

In August 2010 we reported that Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market had extended its 'eatwell' healthy foods private brand into the dry grocery category, from an initial launch of the brand in the fresh-prepared foods category earlier in the year, by creating a canned turkey chili item. [See - August 18, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Extending 'eatwell' Healthy Foods' Private Brand Into Dry Grocery Category

We followed that exclusive report up a month later in early September with a story - September 10, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Extending its 'eatwell' Healthy Foods' Brand Into Frozen Food Category - detailing how Tesco's Fresh & Easy planned to further extend the 'eatwell' brand into the frozen foods category. And in this piece a couple weeks later - September 27, 2010 - First Items in Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's 'eatwell' Brand Frozen Foods Line Arriving in Store Freezer Cases This Week - we documented our September 10 report.

Today, many months later, Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is formally announcing and promoting the new 'eatwell' canned turkey chili and its "new" line of 'eatwell' frozen meals, in its "Friends of Fresh & Easy" e-mail newsletter, which you can view here. The e-mail promotional piece went out today to members of "Friends of Fresh & Easy."

In the promotional piece, pictured at top, Tesco's Fresh & Easy says: "We expanded our eatwell line to make eating better even better. So you'll now find more ready meals, salads, sandwiches, and soups, along with all-new items like snacks and frozen meals. Each eatwell item is made with 25% or less of the daily recommended value of calories, total and saturated fat, and sodium.* Best of all, they're just as affordable as they are delicious."

The frozen meals line and canned turkey chili in the promotional piece are the items Fresh & Easy Buzz reported on five months ago.

Some of the new 'eatwell' brand fresh-prepared foods items in today's 'Friends of Fresh & Easy" promotional piece were introduced late last year. However, most of the refrigerated ready-tp-eat and ready-to-heat items are brand new, being introduced for the first time this week. Fresh & Easy Buzz was the first publication to report on Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's plans to launch the 'eatwell' brand last year. [See - April 1, 2010: Tesco's Fresh & Easy to Launch New 'EatWell' Brand Lower-Sodium, Fewer-Calorie Prepared Foods Line and April 2, 2010: Fresh & Easy's New 'EatWell' Healthier Fresh, Prepared Foods Brand to Hit Stores on April 7.]

In our September 2010 stories about the extension of the 'eatwell' brand into the frozen foods category, we noted that Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market planned to introduce additional fresh-prepared foods items under the healthy foods' brand in early 2011. The ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat items mentioned above are the first of those new items for the new year.

Fresh & Easy is also working on additional 'eatwell' brand items in the dry grocery and frozen foods category, according to our sources, including shelf-stable snacks and potentially condiments and dressings.

Additionally, the grocer is considering extending its 'eatwell' private brand into perishable foods other than ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat and frozen. Such items could include refrigerated dairy, salad dressing and similar items.

As we've noted in past stories, Fresh & Easy's brand strategy behind 'eatwell' is to make it a multi-category healthy foods' brand similar to what Safeway Stores has done with its 'Eating Right" brand, which Safeway uses across all product categories, including dry grocery, perishables, prepared foods/deli, produce and fresh meat.

Apparently, Fresh & Easy wasn't ready to announce or promote the 'eatwell' frozen food line last year - instead saving it perhaps for the beginning of the new year so it could use it as a "Healthy New Year" promotional hook, which is exactly what it's doing with the "Friends of Fresh & Easy' promotional mailer today. Additionally, as a heads up, look for many of the 'eatwell' healthy foods items to be in Fresh & Easy's new weekly advertising circular, the first one for 2011, which comes out tomorrow.

Readers of Fresh & Easy Buzz, didn't have to wait until now though, or until they visited a Fresh & Easy market, to learn about the 'eatwell' brand dry grocery and frozen category brand extensions because we reported the news, along with providing analysis and added information, in August and September of 2010. We call that "private brand intelligence."

[Private Brand Showcase is a regular feature of Fresh & Easy Buzz. In it we report on, write about and offer analysis and commentary on the fast-growing private or retailer brand (sometimes called private label) movement, along with featuring various private brand products being offered by Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market and other food and grocery retailers. This is our first 'Private Brand Showcase' piece for 2011. Below is a selection of 2010 stories.]

December 23, 2010: New Items Show Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Niche-Specialty Category Private Brand Development Focus

December 21, 2010: New 'Marketside' Brand Fresh Food Items From Walmart - Part Deux

December 18, 2010: Walmart Launches New 'Marketside' Fresh Food Lines - Plus A 'Fresh' Campaign to Create Brand Buzz

December 13, 2010: House (Sparking) Cider Rules at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

October 30, 2010: Raley's Launches New 'Raley's TO GO' Pre-Packaged, Refrigerated Fresh-Prepared Foods Line

October 16, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market 'Bags' the Humble and Nutritious Plantain For A New Snack Chip Item

October 16, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Private Brand Kids' Cereal Wins Bronze 'Pentaward' in 2010 Packaging Design Competition

October 9, 2010: 'Use Me': Should Reusable Packaging Be Part of Tesco's Sustainable Private Brand Offering? A Student-Designer Thinks So

September 27, 2010: First Items in Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's 'eatwell' Brand Frozen Foods Line Arriving in Store Freezer Cases This Week

September 4, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Unveils New fresh&easy 'goodness' Brand Items and Packaging

August 29, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Expanding its fresh&easy 'goodness' Co-Branded Line; Launching Numerous New Items

August 18, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Extending 'eatwell' Healthy Foods' Private Brand Into Dry Grocery Category

July 21, 2010: 'Sipsational' & 'Quenchtastic': Safeway Introduces New 21-Flavor Line of Soft Drinks Under 'refreshe' Private Brand

July 17, 2010: New Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Clock-Shaped Private Brand Candy Line Hits the Shelves at Fresh & Easy

July 12, 2010: Tesco Launches Private Brand 'Lasagne Sandwich' in the UK Today...With No Apologies to The Earl of Sandwich

June 24, 2010: New Fresh & Easy Clock Logo-Shaped Candies Are A Pretty Sweet Idea

May 11, 2010: Tesco Might Want to Get 'fresh & naked' at 'fresh & easy'

April 2, 2010: Fresh & Easy's New 'EatWell' Healthier Fresh, Prepared Foods Brand to Hit Stores on April 7

April 11, 2010: When it Comes to Fresh, Prepared Foods, New York City's Duane Reade is Simply 'deLish' for Walgreens

February 22, 2010: Food, Drug Retailers With Stores in California, Nevada & Arizona Honored for Private Label-Store Brands' Excellence

No comments: