The Wisdom of the Crowd: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Wines Won 39 Medals in the L.A. International Wine Competition; Will it Motivate Your Purchase?

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's marketing and public relations people announced via a press release today that the 175-store fresh food and grocery chain has won 39 medals at the 72nd annual Los Angeles International Wine & Spirits Competition for a variety of its proprietary brand wines.

The annual wine and spirits competition is part of the Los Angeles County Fair, which takes place September 3-October 2 this year. An olive oil tasting and judging is also conducted in conjunction with the annual wine competition.

The wine competition judging took place in May. The competition's officials announced the winners June 7.

Among the wines Fresh & Easy won medals for (18 out of the 39 medals) were its new line of proprietary or private brand California wines, which we wrote about in this March 8, 2011 story: Tesco's Fresh & Easy ♥'s California With 27 New Varieties of Proprietary Brand Wines From the Golden State. The new California wines were introduced in the stores in March.

You can see which Fresh & Easy wine brands and varieties won medals here, along with viewing all of the award-winning wine brands and varieties from others. The competition also has a Facebook page here.

El Segundo, California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is one of just a few food and grocery retailers that enter its private or proprietary brand wines in this and other competitions.

The pioneering grocer in doing so is another Southern California-based chain - Trader Joe's - which has been entering its various private brand wines in the Los Angeles and other competitions, often winning first place in on or more varietal categories, for many years.

It's important to note, however, that not many U.S. grocery and mass merchandise chains offer a moderate-to-extensive assortment of private brand wines (many have a value brand though), although that's beginning to change. As such, there's not much in the way of proprietary brand wine for the majority of grocers to enter in these competitions at present, even if they wanted to.

Tesco-owned Fresh & Easy followed Trader Joe's lead in entering various wine competitions, starting in 2007, and has to date won 275 medals overall.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market also promotes wine regularly in its 175 stores in California, Nevada and Arizona and attempts to use the category, particularly its private brand wines, as a leader in terms of hoping it is a lure to bring shoppers into its stores.

We've written extensively about the wine category at Tesco's Fresh & Easy (and other grocers), including its participation in various wine competitions, along with merchandising, marketing and promotional aspects.

[You can read our stories by clicking on the following links: Fresh and Easy proprietary wines, Fresh and Easy wine, wine awards, wine merchandising, California wine competitions, wine awards, Fresh Easy wine category review, The Big Kahuna brand wine, wine marketing, wine promotions, liquor wine beer categories, alcoholic beverage sales-merchandising, wine retailing, Charles Shaw Wines, Mike Samii, Trader Joe's, Robert Parker, Beverages and More.]

As we noted earlier, the majority of U.S. food retailers don't offer much in the way of private brand wines.

Trader Joe's and Fresh & Easy have the most extensive proprietary wine programs we're aware of among U.S. grocers and mass merchandise chains, although as noted numerous big chains like Costco, Walmart and even regional grocers like Save Mart Supermarkets in California offer a value-based (think Trader Joe's Two Buck Chuck) proprietary brand wine. Fresh & Easy's value brand is called the The Big Kahuna.

Fresh  Easy's parent, United Kingdom-based Tesco, has long had a proprietary brand wine program in operation and offers numerous own brand varieties in its stores in the UK particularly, but also at its stores elsewhere in Europe and in Asia.

What interests us about these wine competitions as they pertain to grocers like Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, Trader Joe's and others, is if winning medals at the events has any influence on shopper purchases of the winning wines in the stores.

This question is important because the primary reason wine-makers and marketers enter their wines in competitions is to sell more of it. Secondarily is the prestige of winning - or what some folks (not us of course)  might even call the "snob appeal factor."

The Wisdom of the Crowd: Reader Questions

Since Fresh & Easy Buzz has some of the smartest and most-inquisitive readers on the planet, we thought we would put the question to you.

So here's the question: Does a wine brand/variety winning a medal (Gold, Silver, Bronze and the like) at a well-known wine competition influence your decision to purchase it?

Further, will you be motivated to try and buy any of the 39 Fresh & Easy proprietary brand wines - there will be signs on the wines at the shelf in the stores designating them as "medal winners" and you can see the various wines from Fresh & Easy that won here - because a given wine won a medal at the Los Angeles International Wine Competition?

Share your response and opinion with your fellow readers using  the "comments" link below. Just click it and tell us what you think.

Integrated Retail & Twitter Wine Promotion Rates Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market A Gold Medal

Wine & Beer Category Report: News/Analysis/Commentary

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market today launched a full-line-drive, mix and match wine category promotion in its 159 fresh food and grocery stores in California, southern Nevada and Metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona.

In the promotion, which runs from June 23 -to- July 6, 2010, customers get 20% off the total of any six or more bottles of wine they purchase.

Additionally, Fresh & Easy is giving away a reusable cotton wine bag with all single-customer wine purchases of $25 or more.

In and of itself there's nothing particularly unique or special about the promo as grocer wine category promotions go, although we like the free wine bag addition. It adds an additional layer to the promotion, beyond just the 20% price focus.

But Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is kicking off the wine promotion with a "Twitter Wine Tasting" this evening, starting at 7 pm pacific time.

This is the grocer's second such "Twitter Wine Tasting," in which participants purchase the wines to be tasted and pondered in the comfort of their homes at a Fresh & Easy store, and then share their questions, comments and evaluations on the various varieties of vino via Twitter.com.

The first such tasting was on February 9 of this year. Read our story about Fresh & Easy's first "Twitter Wine Tasting" - February 8, 2010: 'I Taste Therefore I Tweet': Fresh & Easy Set to Hold 'Twitter (Wine) Tasting' Tomorrow Night.

Tonight's wine tippling tweeters will be tasting three of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's proprietary wines. The three brands-varieties are: Napa Family Vineyards Chardonnay, which retails for under $12; The Vine Yard Late Harvest Riesling, which sells for under $8; and Re del Castello Chianti Classico, which goes for under $10 at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood market stores. Fresh & Easy is featuring two of the varieties, along with a few others, in its "Friends of Fresh & Easy" e-mail promo which it sent out late yesterday. That's what we call "positive, practical, promotional merchandising integration," or PPPMI for short. More on that concept a little later below.

In order to participate in the virtual wine tasting event (virtual on twitter but real at home) people with a Twitter account - those who don't already have one can create one in a couple minutes - simply sign up at Taste Live, send an RSVP here, buy the three wines at a Fresh & Easy store, and then log-in back at Taste Live, at 7 pm tonight.

According to the grocer, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market wine category manager Karen Fletcher will be tweeting, answering questions and following the tasters' evaluations at its Twitter.com account - @fresh_and_easy - starting at 7 pm. The tippling tweeters need only to use the Twitter hashtag #FreshEasyWines in order to be able to view the wine tweets of their fellow tasters on Twitter tonight.

Positive, practical, promotional merchandising integration

As regular Fresh & Easy Buzz readers are aware - and non-regular readers of the blog will soon become aware of - we're big advocates of integrated promotions that tie-in what happens on the store floor (merchandising and promotional merchandising) with various forms of media, particularly forms of interactive social media like Twitter, Facebook and the like.

We've been suggesting to Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in our strategy session-oriented posts since about mid-2008 that the grocer needs to focus much more on doing integrated promotions across all categories. One of the Fresh & Easy's problems or challenges, in our analysis, has been a failure to integrate; to use multiple platforms, integrating on the store floor merchandising with various forms of media. For example, we liked this recent promotion at Fresh & Easy. But the grocer failed to take it beyond the stores; to integrate it with other media in a meaningful and significant way.

Merchandising and media-related promotions such as the wine promotion-twitter event, which tie-in the stores and the larger consumer world, are something Fresh & Easy needs to do more regularly in order to create excitement, drive sales into the stores, build brand, and create new, much-needed customers.

In terms of the various categories, in our analysis the best merchandising and promotional activity Fresh & Easy has done thus far is in the wine category.

Wine category manager Karen Fletcher has been in her position at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market from the very beginning. Therefore we give her the primary credit for this development.
Fresh & Easy's wine and beer category has flipped-flopped between the directors of the grocer's two buying and merchandising departments, fresh and grocery - and not totally against Ms. Fletcher's objection - three times since 2007.

The wine and beer category was originally (and logically) under the grocery department. But it later was moved to the fresh department for internal reasons. Then in the summer of 2008 the category was switched back to grocery, under the supervision of Sean McCurley, who made a lateral move at the time from director of fresh foods to grocery director - and who recently returned to Tesco in the UK - replacing Charlotte Maxwell, who departed Fresh & Easy to return to Tesco in the UK, which she left the employ of shortly after. (Yes, Sean McCurley and Karen Fletcher had a strong working relationship. They both also came to Fresh & Easy from Tesco in the UK.)

Tweet, drink and be merry

While a Twitter-based wine tasting doesn't have the glamour and excitement of a live tasting, say at a Napa Valley winery, it certainly offers some advantages. Among those advantages include: being able to dress comfortably - although we don't want to hear about participants wearing boxer shorts or old sweat pants while wine tasting and tweeting tonight - relaxing on your couch at home with a laptop computer nestled close by or a smart phone in hand, and being able to stock the fridge with one's own choice of foods to cleanse the palate between bottles of wine.

From a marketing and merchandising standpoint for Fresh & Easy the tasting offers the grocer a chance to get people into the stores to purchase the three bottles of wine, and then hopefully buy additional food and grocery items. But much more than that, as we said earlier, it integrates what is happening at retail - the June 23 -to- July 6 wine promotion - with a wider social media-based promotion, thereby helping over time (with repetition and other different integrated promotions added on) to create a story around the wine category at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.

Doing this - integrating what goes happens on the store floor with media promotions and events - and doing it regularly, comprehensively and in a creative yet practical manner (need to sell product as well as create buzz) is what good merchandising and promotions are all about, as in creating and telling a good story, which in many ways is the essence of a potentially successful marketing campaign.

Salute! In 140 characters or less of course.

Readers: Click here to read a selection of past posts in Fresh & Easy Buzz on wine category merchandising and related topics.

'I Taste Therefore I Tweet': Fresh & Easy Set to Hold 'Twitter (Wine) Tasting' Tomorrow Night

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has teamed up with the online wine tasting community Taste Live, and is holding a virtual wine tasting event tomorrow evening (February 9, 2010) from 7:00 pm -to- 8: 00 pm (Pacific Standard Time).

Fresh & Easy is calling the virtual wine tasting a "Twitter Tasting" because the event will focus on tasters' tweeting their evaluations of the three wines being tasted on the social media site Twitter.com.

Tasters will be sampling three of Fresh & Easy's proprietary wines during the one hour virtual and social media wine tasting tomorrow night.

The three wines are: Montcadi Cava Rose from Spain, which sells for under $6; Boro Hills Sauvignon Blanc (from New Zealand), which sells at Fresh & Easy for about $11; and Matuco Malbec 2007 (Argentina), which retails for under $10.

Tasters can buy one, two or all three of the wines at a local Fresh & Easy market for the tasting. Here's a brief description of each of the wine varieties.

Taste Live often holds these virtual wine tastings in partnership with various wineries like Kunde Family Wines and others.

Here's how the virtual "Twitter Tasting" works:

>Those interested in participating first need to register at Taste Live using their Twitter or Facebook account, or by creating an account at the tastelive.com Web site here.

>Once registered, event participants then need to RSVP their intended participation to Tesco's Fresh & Easy here.

>Tasters then buy one or more of the three wines being tasted during the one hour "Twitter Tasting" at a Fresh & Easy store.

Karen Fletcher, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's category manager for wine, is hosting the "Twitter Tasting" tomorrow night, according to Fresh & Easy.

During the one hour event Fresh & Easy will be tweeting at its @fresh_and_easy account on Twitter.com.

The grocer's social media team has created a Twitter hashtag - #FandEWine - which it wants tweeter-wine tasters to use after each of their tweets in order to be able to track the one hour "Twitter Tasting."

Such hashtags used on Twitter allow for users to search particular topics on the site by entering the hashtag into its search function.

Fresh & Easy wine merchandising & marketing

First, Fresh & Easy Buzz likes the concept of the "Twitter Tasting." We give Tesco Fresh & Easy's marketing team, particularly its social media folks, a thumbs up for giving it a try.

The reason we like it is because it's different, is a bit out of the box, and fits in well with the much improved job (since about mid-2009) the grocer's social media team has been doing using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

We also like it because although it's virtual, it's also participatory - it brings tweeters and others together in a form of community around a common event - wine tasting.

Such uses of social media can over time build up a strong core of Fresh & Easy wine shoppers-consumers if done well.

It's using social media for marketing purposes but the event emphasises the "social" over the "marketing" aspect because of the focus on the wine tasting. Participants can be as critical as they want about the wines in their tweets, which means Fresh & Easy can't control the marketing message, like a retailer can do with paid advertising and the like.

One of Tesco's goals with Fresh & Easy is to build the Fresh & Easy retail brand in part through making its proprietary wines and wine merchandising program "famous." In fact, this is one of the charges the grocer gave to the marketing-oriented public relations firms it interviewed in March-April 2008.

Additionally, the fantastic success of wine sales at Trader Joe's hasn't been something lost on Tesco. It's no accident Fresh & Easy's wine and beer program looks very similar to Trader Joe's in terms of product selection, merchandising and marketing.

Fresh & Easy's wine program or wines aren't famous yet. But creative marketing programs like the "Twitter Tasting," combined with good product selection and merchandising, can go a long way in brand building, in our analysis.

Of course, key to tomorrow night's "Twitter (wine) Tasting" being a success is the fact that it has participants. The more tweets the better. Also, the more critical - not just pro the wines tasted - tweets during the tasting the more interesting it will be.

After all, when it comes to criticism (and even a bit of whining), some of the best involves wines.

[Readers: Click here for a selection of past stories from Fresh & Easy Buzz on Tesco Fresh & Easy's wine program, wine category merchandsing, and related topics and issues.]

Fresh Buzz - News & Notes About Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market: 'Drought' Ends; Hollywood Fresh & Easy to Start Selling Beer and Wine

Breaking Buzz: After 16 Long, 'Dry' Months, Hollywood, California Fresh & Easy Store on Hollywood Boulevard to Start Selling Beer and Wine This Week

The Hollywood, California (7021 Hollywood Boulevard & Sycamore) Tesco Fresh & Easy store (pictured at top) will finally begin selling beer and wine this week, Fresh Buzz has learned.

Beginning this week, the Hollywood Boulevard store will start offering beer and wine but not hard liquor, which requires a separate license.

The Hollywood Fresh & Easy market, which opened on January 23, 2008, until this week was one of just two Fresh & Easy units Fresh Buzz is aware of in Southern California that since opening haven't sold alcoholic beverages of any kind, including beer and wine. There are 61 Fresh & Easy stores in Southern California.

The other store, the Fresh & Easy market at 15230 Vanowen Street in the Van Nuys area of Los Angeles, still doesn't sell any alcoholic beverages. [Learn more here - October 9, 2008: Reader Reponse: Details on Tesco Fresh & Easy Stores Denied Licenses and Permits to Sell Spirits, Beer and Wine in Southern California.]

The reason the Hollywood Fresh & Easy market hasn't sold beer and wine (or spirits) until this week is because the retailer's applications for a liquor license and beer and wine permit for the Hollywood store were both denied after the Rite Aid drug store chain, which has a store next to the Hollywood Boulevard Fresh & Easy unit, opposed granting the store the permits because of an ordinance in the city that requires there only be a set number of stores within a given geographical area that are allowed to sell spirits, beer and wine.

The Rite Aid drug store next to the Hollywood Fresh & Easy sells hard liquor, wine and beer.

The issue has now been resolved regarding beer and wine only, allowing the Fresh & Easy market to start selling the adult beverages this week.

In Fresh Buzz's analysis the ability to now offer wine and beer for sale at the Hollywood Boulevard Fresh & Easy store is a plus for the grocer for a variety of reasons.

First, the neighborhood's demographics -- lots of younger consumers and wine and beer drinkers -- means added sales for the store. Many shoppers have complained since the store opened in January, 2008 about not being able to pick up a bottle of wine or a six pack of beer with their other purchases while in the store. Now they can.

Second, the Hollywood Boulevard neighborhood is a major tourist area. Hollywood tourists are known to sometimes enjoy a bottle of wine or a six pack of beer. Now when tourists shop at the Fresh & Easy store for prepared foods, they can add beer and wine to their purchases.

Additionally, since Tesco's Fresh & Easy offers numerous (over 60 SKUs) proprietary wine blends -- including its $1.99 a bottle ($2.99 in Nevada and Arizona) Big Kahuna brand Australian wine -- the store's wine category offerings will provide some differentiation to shoppers -- and for the grocer -- vis-a-vis the nearly next door Rite-Aid drug store's wine selection. This is a plus for the Hollywood Fresh & Easy store since its offerings aren't just a duplicate of the drug store's.

Fresh & Easy stores also sell numerous varieties of micro-brew beers, which also should appeal to the neighborhood's consumer demographics. The nearby Rite-Aid drug store offers fewer micro-brew beer selections than Fresh & Easy markets do, for example.

Lastly, Tesco's Fresh & Easy offers its own store brand version of the popular Corona brand beer. That Fresh & Easy store brand beer is called Taurino. The proprietary store brand beer is brewed in El Salvador and comes in a 12-pack.

Fresh & Easy often offers its Tourino store brand beer on sale, something that should appeal to the numerous struggling actors and screenwriters (and others) that populate the Hollywood Boulevard neighborhood near the Hollywood & Sycamore Fresh & Easy store. The 12-packs of Tourino beer sell for about $6.99 everyday at the Fresh & Easy stores.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy says the imported Tourino store brand beer is the top-selling beer brand at its grocery and fresh foods markets in California (Southern and Bakersfield), southern Nevada and Metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona.

Selling beer, wine and spirits is a sales plus for grocers because the items help to increase the average customer market basket size (total dollar amount per purchase), which is a key metric for food retailers. Shoppers pick up a bottle or two of wine with their food purchases and buy snacks and other complementary items along with their beer purchases, for example. It's a win-win for grocers.

Customers can now do so to their hearts (or palates) content beginning this week at the Hollywood Bloulevard Fresh & Easy grocery and fresh foods market.

Related Stories From Fresh & Easy Buzz:

>October 9, 2008: Reader Reponse: Details on Tesco Fresh & Easy Stores Denied Licenses and Permits to Sell Spirits, Beer and Wine in Southern California

>January 23, 2008: Big 'Hollywood Style' Premere Today for New Hollywood Fresh & Easy Store

>January 16, 2008: Fresh & Easy Goes Hollywood: New Store to Open Next Week

>February 18, 2009: Oscar Night Marketing: Fresh & Easy Scores A Gold With Just Out Academy Awards Night Tie-In News Release

>September 2, 2008: Fresh & Easy Gets Local; Creates Free 'Indie' Music Concert Series at its Hollywood, CA Store For September

>July 14, 2008: Breaking News & Analysis: CA Assemblyman Introduces 'Tesco Fresh & Easy Law' to Ban Stores With Self-Checkout-Only From Selling Alcoholic Beverages

>June 11, 2008: Out of His Compound and Hitting the Street; the 'Militant Angeleno' Shops and Reviews the Hollywood, California Fresh & Easy Grocery Store

>June 17, 2008: Celebrity Sightings: The Los Angeles Nomad Spots Long Tall (John) Salley at the Hollywood, California Fresh & Easy On Hollywood Blvd.

>February 10, 2008: the Haphazard Gourmet Girls Visit the Hollywood, California Fresh & Easy, and 'Love it Dahling'

>May 14, 2008: New Foods At Fresh & Easy: Los Angeles' 'Homeboy Bakery' and Tesco's Fresh & Easy Could Be A Match 'Made in Heaven'

>January 29, 2009: Breaking News: New-Wave, Hybrid Food-Grocery-Convenience Store 'Locali Conscious Convenience' to Open Tomorrow in Hollywood, California

>September 11, 2008: 'Locali Conscious Convenience:' New Small-Format Hybrid Convenience-Grocery Store Coming to Hollywood, California

>October 27, 2008: Category Management Report: Fresh & Easy Conducting Wine Category Review and SKU Rationalization; We Offer Some Analysis

[Follow Fresh & Easy Buzz around on Twitter.com at www.twitter.com/freshneasybuzz.]

In Vino Veritas: Tesco's Fresh & Easy to Introduce 25 New Wines as Part Of Wine Category Makeover We First Reported On in October, 2008

Wine Category Merchandising

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market will introduce 25 new wine SKUS in its stores over the next three months, 15 of which will be proprietary wines exclusive to Fresh & Easy, according to wine category manager Karen Fletcher.

The 25 new wines will be a mix of domestic and imported varieties, Ms. Fletcher says, and will range in price from a low of $1.99 a bottle -to- $40 a bottle.

"Fresh & Easy's new selection of wines will be perfect for summer drinking and includes traditional favorites such as a California Cabernet from Sonoma. Unique imports will also be added to the company's range including a Malbec from Argentina, sparkling wines from Italy and a Tempranillo-Shiraz and Ribera del Duero from Spain," Fresh & Easy corporate wine category manager Fletcher says.

"We're always hunting for new wines so our customers have something new to enjoy. We have some great picks coming from California, Washington, Argentina, Spain and Australia. "Now that we're offering all of our wine at 20 percent off 6 (bottles), which is our best deal yet, it's a great opportunity for our customers to try something new, or to buy their favorite wines at a great price."

Tesco Fresh & Easy's Fletcher is referring in the quote to the retailer's just-launched 20%-off purchases of six bottles of wine or more promotion, which we reported on and wrote about in this piece yesterday: In Vino Veritas: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Kicking-Off 20 Percent-Off Six Bottles Or More Wine Promotion This Week; Promotion Runs Until April 25.

In October of 2008 Fresh & Easy Buzz reported exclusively about the wine category review led by category manager Fletcher taking place at Fresh & Easy corporate headquarters in El Segundo, California. [That story: Category Management Report: Fresh & Easy Conducting Wine Category Review and SKU Rationalization; We Offer Some Analysis.]

Additionally, in this November 11, 2008 piece [Wine Category Report: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Kicks Off New Merchandising and Promotional Efforts Designed to Grow Wine Category Sales.] we wrote about Fresh & Easy's plans to grow its wine category sales.

The introduction of the 25 new wines over the next three months, along with the 20%-off deep-discount promotion launched this week and running until April 25, are a direct result of the wine category evaluation we wrote about in October of last year and the merchandising and promotional plans we reported on in November, 2008.

Own brands

Proprietary brands and wines are a major part of Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's wine category merchandising strategy.

The strategy comes directly from United Kingdom-based Tesco, which is one of the top retailer's of wine globally. Tesco creates and merchandises numerous varieties of proprietary wines in its stores in the United Kingdom, where its that nation's leading food and grocery retailer, and elsewhere throughout the world where it has stores.

Tesco also is the number one retail buyer of Australian wines, and as a result is able to get excellent bargains on Australian-made wine to use in its various proprietary wines. For example, the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market proprietary value brand, Big Kuhuna, which it sells for $1.99 a bottle in California and for $2.99 in Nevada and Arizona, is an Australian wine. There are two varieties of Big Kahuna, a white and a red.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market wine category manager Karen Fletcher is familiar with this system since she came to Tesco's Fresh & Easy from Tesco in the United Kingdom.

Master of Wine

Tesco's Fresh & Easy also uses a Master of Wine, who works with Ms. Fletcher and the wine category buyers to create the proprietary wines for the stores.

According to the Masters of Wine Institute, there currently are only 274 Masters of Wine, located in 23 countries. The designation requires rigorous testing in order to earn it. [You can learn more about the Masters of Wine designation here.]

New wines: pricing

Tesco's Fresh & Easy isn't saying what percentage of the 25 new wines to be introduced over the next three months are in what price ranges; just that the retail price-points will range from $1.99 -to- $40. However, according to a source, we're told that the majority of the 25 new wines will be in the value-price range, which generally means under about $12 a bottle.

Right now wines selling for under $10 a bottle make up the vast majority of the volume being sold, with wines priced at about $6.99 and below comprising the highest percentage of the under $10 segment.

In other words, with wine as with most all else at present, value is ruling among shoppers.

SKU rationalization

Tesco's Fresh & Easy also doesn't say if it's discontinuing any wine SKU to make room for the 25 new varieties. We can report that the retailer is eliminating some slower moving wines as part of its category evaluation and the introduction of the new SKUS. Out with some old, in with some new -- that's what a category evaluation and SKU rationalization is all about.

As part of its strategic objective to increase wine category sales, look for additional new category developments and promotions in the coming months, in addition to the introduction of the 25 new wines over the next three months, and the 20%-off promotion which lasts until April 25.

Below is a linked selection of a few wine category pieces from Fresh & Easy Buzz:

>March 26, 2009: In Vino Veritas: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Kicking-Off 20 Percent-Off Six Bottles Or More Wine Promotion This Week; Promotion Runs Until April 25

>October 27, 2008: Southern California Market Report: Beverages & More to Join Trader Joe's and Fresh & Easy to Form Manhattan Beach Food and Beverage Retailing Triangle

>March 22, 2008: In Vino Veritas: No Whining About This 'Parker-Point' Rating for a Fresh & Easy Proprietary Spanish Wine

>July 22, 2008: Obituary: Innovative Trader Joe's Head Wine Buyer and Popularizer of Value Wines Robert Berning; 73

>March 4, 2008: In Vino Veritas: Fresh & Easy Store Brand Wines Win Two Silvers and Lots of Bronze Medals; Trader Joe's 'Two-Buck Chuck' Chardonnay Wins a Double-Gold

>July 9, 2008: In Vino Veritas: Fresh & Easy Announces 63 Wine Awards to Date; Will Face Off Again Against Wine Award Winning 'Big Kahuna' Trader Joe's at State Fair

>September 22, 2008: Fresh & Easy Buzz Strategy Session: Trader Joe's and the Key to Enlightenment?

>November 11, 2008: Wine Category Report: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Kicks Off New Merchandising and Promotional Efforts Designed to Grow Wine Category Sales

>October 27, 2008: Category Management Report: Fresh & Easy Conducting Wine Category Review and SKU Rationalization; We Offer Some Analysis

>April 25, 2008: Tesco's Fresh & Easy to Launch A Marketing-Oriented, Brand-Building Consumer Public Relations Campaign For its Store Brand Products and its Wines

>April 30, 2009: Raising Arizona and Getting Local in the Neighborhood: State's First 100% Locally-Produced Wine Offers Win-Win for Tesco's Fresh & Easy Arizona Stores

>July 14, 2008: Breaking News & Analysis: CA Assemblyman Introduces 'Tesco Fresh & Easy Law' to Ban Stores With Self-Checkout-Only From Selling Alcoholic Beverages

>November 10, 2008: Competitive Retailer Wine Category Report: First Person Singular - 'How I Sold 37 Bottles of Wine in 45 Minutes at Trader Joe's'

[Reader Note: You can follow Fresh & Easy Buzz around on Twitter.com at www.twitter.com/freshneasybuzz.]

In Vino Veritas: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Kicking-Off 20 Percent-Off Six Bottles Or More Wine Promotion This Week; Promotion Runs Until April 25

Promotional Merchandising: Wine Category

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is kicking off a three week deep-discount wine promotion in its stores in California (Southern and Bakersfield), southern Nevada and Metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, in which it's doubling the 10% discount it offers shoppers on purchases of six or more bottles of wine to 20% off.

The 20%-off six bottles or more promotion, which started this week, runs until April 21, 2009, according to Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.

Fresh & Easy started offering 10%-off purchases of six or more bottles of wine in November, 2008, following retailers with stores in California, Nevada and Arizona like Safeway Stores, Raley's, Trader Joe's, Cost-Plus World Market, Target, Beverages & More and others that have been offering 10% -to- 15%-off purchases of six or more bottles of wine for quite some time.

The 20%-off promotion ups the ante in the highly competitive retail wine markets where Fresh & Easy operates its 116 combination grocery and fresh foods markets.

BevMo's five cent wine promotion

But Tesco's Fresh & Easy isn't the only wine retailer promoting aggressively at present. Wine, sprits and beer beverage category killer retailer Beverages & More (BevMo), which has numerous stores in California, Nevada and Arizona, is currently in the midst of its annual "buy one bottle of wine at the regular price get a second bottle of equal value for 5-cents" spring wine promotion.

BevMo conducts this annual promotion in all of its stores, which feature wine, spirits, beers, snacks, specialty-gourmet foods and more, each year starting right before spring and on into the spring season months. It's a very popular promotion and results in a huge volume of wine sales for the retailer. [You can learn more about the BevMo 5-cent wine sale here.] [Related reading: Southern California Market Report: Beverages & More to Join Trader Joe's and Fresh & Easy to Form Manhattan Beach Food and Beverage Retailing Triangle.]

Mix & match at Fresh & Easy

Shoppers can mix and match the six or more bottles of wine -- different varieties, different price-points -- and receive 20% off the total during the Fresh & Easy 20% wine promotion between now and April 25.

Yet another value-based move

The wine promotion is another example of how Tesco's Fresh & Easy is moving closer to the value proposition positioning Fresh & Easy Buzz suggested for the grocery and fresh foods chain about one year ago. [Read more here: March 26, 2009: News, Analysis & Commentary: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Continues Moving Closer to the 'Value Propostion' Positioning; This Time in Prepared Foods Category.] [And here: March 2, 2009: Fresh & Easy Buzz Redux: Much of the Value Proposition-Based Analysis and Suggestions We've Been Offering Now Being Adopted By Tesco's Fresh & Easy.]

Wine category efforts at Fresh & Easy

In October and November of 2008 we reported exclusively on efforts then in progress at Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market to conduct a complete wine category review and SKU rationalization [this story on October 28, 2008: Category Management Report: Fresh & Easy Conducting Wine Category Review and SKU Rationalization; We Offer Some Analysis] and on the grocery chain's new program designed to increase wine category sales through new promotional efforts in its stores in this [November 11, 2008 piece: Wine Category Report: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Kicks Off New Merchandising and Promotional Efforts Designed to Grow Wine Category Sales.]

The 20%-off discount promotion is a direct result of those wine category activities led by Fresh & Easy's wine category manager Karen Fletcher, who came to Fresh & Easy from Tesco in the United Kingdom.

Additional wine category developments are following, including the introduction of a number of new proprietary brand wine varieties by Tesco's Fresh & Easy, with an emphasis on value-priced varieties.

The 'Big Kuhuna'

Fresh & Easy sells a value-based proprietary wine from Australia called the Big Kuhuna for $1.99 a bottle in California and $2.99 in Nevada and Arizona. The wine is similar to Trader Joe's famous "Two Buck Chuck" value wine. Trader Joe's "Two Buck Chuck" is a California wine.

Under the 20%-off six bottles or more promotion, a shopper can get six bottles of Big Kuhuna for under $10. That's a good buy in these recessionary times.

Promotional product in-stock key

As a result, we suspect Fresh & Easy will see some high volume sales in the next three weeks on the Big Kuhuna wines, along with a number of other varieties.

We do hope that unlike was the case when it promoted a dozen red roses for $9.99 for Valentines Day in February, 2009 (a hot price), when it ran out of the roses every day in most of its stores and was out of stock days before Valentines' Day in many of the stores, that the grocer has prepared itself with plenty of wine inventory, particularly the two varieties of Big Kuhuna, so that shoppers aren't let down by out-of-stocks when they go to their neighborhood Fresh & Easy market to cash in on the good value deal being offered in the 20%-off promotion until April 25. [Click on the comments link and read the comments in this piece: The Valentine's Day (Retail Promotional Price) War of the (Dozen Long-Stemmed) Red Roses: And the Winner Is... Tesco's Fresh & Easy.]

If the retailer has plenty of wine inventory (particularly Big Kuhuna), thereby pleasing shoppers rather than alienating them, the promotion will be a positive one in that it should move some significant wine volume, generate new customer trial, and introduce new shoppers to the store's wine departments and selections. If all works, that's a triple-win.

There's no reason after all to let Beverages & More get all the wine action this month and next month in California, Nevada and Arizona with its 5-cent wine sale.

Below is a linked selection of past wine category pieces from Fresh & Easy Buzz:

>October 27, 2008: Southern California Market Report: Beverages & More to Join Trader Joe's and Fresh & Easy to Form Manhattan Beach Food and Beverage Retailing Triangle

>March 22, 2008: In Vino Veritas: No Whining About This 'Parker-Point' Rating for a Fresh & Easy Proprietary Spanish Wine

>July 22, 2008: Obituary: Innovative Trader Joe's Head Wine Buyer and Popularizer of Value Wines Robert Berning; 73

>March 4, 2008: In Vino Veritas: Fresh & Easy Store Brand Wines Win Two Silvers and Lots of Bronze Medals; Trader Joe's 'Two-Buck Chuck' Chardonnay Wins a Double-Gold

>July 9, 2008: In Vino Veritas: Fresh & Easy Announces 63 Wine Awards to Date; Will Face Off Again Against Wine Award Winning 'Big Kahuna' Trader Joe's at State Fair

>September 22, 2008: Fresh & Easy Buzz Strategy Session: Trader Joe's and the Key to Enlightenment?

>November 11, 2008: Wine Category Report: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Kicks Off New Merchandising and Promotional Efforts Designed to Grow Wine Category Sales

>October 27, 2008: Category Management Report: Fresh & Easy Conducting Wine Category Review and SKU Rationalization; We Offer Some Analysis

>April 25, 2008: Tesco's Fresh & Easy to Launch A Marketing-Oriented, Brand-Building Consumer Public Relations Campaign For its Store Brand Products and its Wines

>April 30, 2009: Raising Arizona and Getting Local in the Neighborhood: State's First 100% Locally-Produced Wine Offers Win-Win for Tesco's Fresh & Easy Arizona Stores

>July 14, 2008: Breaking News & Analysis: CA Assemblyman Introduces 'Tesco Fresh & Easy Law' to Ban Stores With Self-Checkout-Only From Selling Alcoholic Beverages

>November 10, 2008: Competitive Retailer Wine Category Report: First Person Singular - 'How I Sold 37 Bottles of Wine in 45 Minutes at Trader Joe's'

[Reader Note: You can follow Fresh & Easy Buzz around on Twitter.com at www.twitter.com/freshneasybuzz.]

Competitive Retailer Wine Category Report: First Person Singular - 'How I Sold 37 Bottles of Wine in 45 Minutes at Trader Joe's'

The Trader Joe's store in New York City's Palladium building in Manhattan has two entrances on the same street. The entrance pictured above, which leads directly into the store's wine department, is designated as Trader Joe's Wine Shop. The other entrace, which is just a few feet down the way and leads into the store's main grocery section, has traditional Trader Joe's grocery market signage. The Manhattan Trader Joe's, which opened in 2006, offers wine delivery to homes and businesses. The Manhattan store also is the first, and one of just a few, Trader Joe's markets that offer home wine delivery.

From the Fresh & Easy Buzz Editor's Desk: Specialty grocer Trader Joe's, which currently operates about 312 stores located throughout the United States, has become one of the premier wine retailers of any format in the country.

The grocer's $1.99 a bottle ($2.99 in some states) Charles Shaw proprietary-blend California wines, called "Two Buck Chuck" for short, took the U.S. wine consuming public and the wine industry by storm when they were introduced in the stores over a decade ago.

The Charles Shaw wines are produced for Trader Joe's by Ceres, California-based Bronco Wine Company.

The wines took the wine industry by storm again in 2007 when Trader Joe's Charles Shaw Chardonnay, which sells for $1.99 a bottle in California where the grocery chain is headquartered, won the grand prize medal in the prestigious California State Fair Wine Competition, beating out wines that retail for ten times the price for the Double- Gold Medal.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy followed Trader Joe's lead in the $1.99 a bottle ($1.99 in California, $2.99 in Nevada and Arizona) wine segment. It sells an Australian proprietary-blended wine, "Big Kahuna" brand, for the same prices in its Fresh & Easy grocery markets in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona.

Trader Joe's stores sell lots of other brands and varieties of wines besides "Two Buck Chuck," which comes in numerous varieties. And the stores sell lots of wine in general.

Trader Joe's sells this high volume of wine in its stores by merely putting it on the shelf (self service), pricing it right and regularly featuring various varieties in off-shelf displays with colorful signage.

Of course, the grocer is able to do this because it has built a strong brand as a retailer that offers quality wines at discount prices over a multi-year period of time. The retailer also puts lots of effort into the wine category.

But it appears with the help of a wine and food specialist, Mike Samii, conducting a professional experiment, a Trader Joe's grocery market in San Diego, California sold even more wine, in a very short period of time, than the chain's already strong reputation for wine sales would otherwise even permit. In fact, we think it might be a world record of bottles of wine sold in a single store in a 45 minute period of time.

You can read the first-person account by chef and wine specialist Mike Samii about how he sold 37 bottles of wine in 45 minutes at a San Diego Trader Joe's store by just walking and talking to shoppers in the store. It's published below.

We think Mike Samii's experiment suggests having store employees who have wine knowledge helps increase wine sales. It's also a strong argument for those supermarkets that employee wine experts or wine stewards in-store. And in Mike Samii's case, he might want to hire himself out to wine retailers at a day rate.

Mike Samii's first person piece:

How I sold 37 bottles of wine in 45 minutes at Trader Joe's
By Mike Samii
Special to Fresh & Easy Buzz

My name is Mike Samii, and I am a Cordon Blue Chef. I have an extensive background in gastronomy and wine.

I shop at Trader Joe's regularly, and I always see people going up and down the aisles looking for a bottle of wine and not knowing what wine to take home. Frankly with the many choices, available, and not knowing what’s what, it is not always easy to choose the right wine.

So I decided to do an experiment one day. One Saturday this last summer, I walked in to one of the Trader Joe's stores in San Diego, California with a clipboard in my hand, pretending that I am writing down a list of wines I like to get for an event. I walked up to every customer that came to the wine section and started looking at the wines for a minute or two, and told them, without introduction, about how good certain wines were in the section and how they tasted.

And, except for a few of the customers, most of them looked at me like I was a god sent. Almost, everyone of them grabbed a bottle or two of the wines I suggested, and thanked me for it. One guy even took 9 bottles of wine and filled up his hand basket. Keeping track of how many bottles people took, my tally read 37 after 45 minutes. I was so gratified to be able to make a difference in some people’s lives by making them a little easier

[Fresh & Easy Buzz Editor's Note: Mike Samii is a Washington state-based chef, wine expert and consultant. For more information about Mike Samii you can go to: www.tastefullyamerican.com , or call him at 425-299-5819.]

Resources:

Related posts from Fresh & Easy Buzz:

Trader Joe's:

>July 22, 2008: Obituary: Innovative Trader Joe's Head Wine Buyer and Popularizer of Value Wines Robert Berning; 73

>March 4, 2008: In Vino Veritas: Fresh & Easy Store Brand Wines Win Two Silvers and Lots of Bronze Medals; Trader Joe's 'Two-Buck Chuck' Chardonnay Wins a Double-Gold

>July 9, 2008: In Vino Veritas: Fresh & Easy Announces 63 Wine Awards to Date; Will Face Off Again Against Wine Award Winning 'Big Kahuna' Trader Joe's at State Fair

>September 22, 2008: Monday, September 22, 2008: Fresh & Easy Buzz Strategy Session: Trader Joe's and the Key to Enlightenment?

>November 6, 2008: Serendipitous Marketing & Cooking With the Trader: Trader Joe's Hits A Marketing Home Run Without Doing A Thing

Tesco's Fresh & Easy:

>November 11, 2008: Wine Category Report: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Kicks Off New Merchandising and Promotional Efforts Designed to Grow Wine Category Sales

>October 27, 2008: Category Management Report: Fresh & Easy Conducting Wine Category Review and SKU Rationalization; We Offer Some Analysis

>October 27, 2008: Southern California Market Report: Beverages & More to Join Trader Joe's and Fresh & Easy to Form Manhattan Beach Food and Beverage Retailing Triangle

>March 22, 2008: In Vino Veritas: No Whining About This 'Parker-Point' Rating for a Fresh & Easy Proprietary Spanish Wine

>April 25, 2008: April 25, 2008: Tesco's Fresh & Easy to Launch A Marketing-Oriented, Brand-Building Consumer Public Relations Campaign For its Store Brand Products and its Wines

>April 30, 2009: April 30, 2008: Raising Arizona and Getting Local in the Neighborhood: State's First 100% Locally-Produced Wine Offers Win-Win for Tesco's Fresh & Easy Arizona Stores

>July 14, 2008: Breaking News & Analysis: CA Assemblyman Introduces 'Tesco Fresh & Easy Law' to Ban Stores With Self-Checkout-Only From Selling Alcoholic Beverages

Wine Category Report: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Kicks Off New Merchandising and Promotional Efforts Designed to Grow Wine Category Sales

In this October 27, 2008 story,"Category Management Report: Fresh & Easy Conducting Wine Category Review and SKU Rationalization; We Offer Some Analysis," in Fresh & Easy Buzz we reported exclusively that Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has been and is in the process of conducting a wine category review and sku rationalization, along with planning to further increase it efforts to promote the wine departments and wines in its stores.

The grocery and fresh foods chain started that increased wine category promotional efforts today, just two weeks after we wrote and published our piece.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market introduced five new wine blends priced under $9 a bottle, today, along with offering a new promotional discount of 10% off on six or more bottles of mix and matched wines, except for the Arbor Mist brand and those wines it already sells by the case.

As part of the new promotion, the grocery and fresh foods chain also introduced for sale today a canvas wine bottle tote bag for $1.99 each, which we wrote Fresh & Easy would be introducing in this story on October 17. The new, reusable fresh & easy canvas wine bag holds up to seven bottles of wine, according to the retailer. Additionally, the canvas wine tote can double as a reusable grocery bag by turning the wine bottle compartments inside out.

Below are the names and per-bottle prices of the five new varieties of wines Fresh & Easy is introducing today:

>Corvina-Merlot Cantina di Merlara -- $8.99
>Ca' Miani Garganega-Pinot Grigio -- $4.99
>La Parra Loca Tempranillo-Shiraz -- $6.99
>Lancewood Cabernet Sauvignon -- $8.99
>Roslyn Family Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon -- $6.99

A major merchandising focus of the new wines is to keep them under $10 a bottle.

We've been told by our sources that as part of its wine category review process and sku rationalization, Fresh & Easy arrived at the conclusion offering wines under $10 a bottle is a good price-point range for its stores.

The wine category is very important to Tesco corporately. The global retailer (third-largest internationally) is one of the top wine importers and sellers in the world. Wine sales at the U.S. Fresh & Easy stores haven't met the retailer's expectations to date. Therefore, the category review, sku rationalization and increased promotion are all part of its plans and hopes to juice up wine sales in its California, Nevada and Arizona stores.

Second wine category promotional effort

Fresh & Easy also launched a second promotional effort today as a way to gain further attention to its stores' wine departments and proprietary wine selection.

This effort is a public relations one though.

The grocery and fresh foods chain today distributed a press release touting sales of sparkling wines more than doubled at its 97 Fresh & Easy stores in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona for Election Day, 2008, which was Tuesday, November 4.

As we wrote about in this piece on November 3, Fresh & Easy launched an election day promotion in its stores that featured food items and beverages, including sparkling wines.

Fresh & Easy stores carry 11 different bottles of sparkling wines, including five that are proprietary varieties, according to a company spokesperson. Seven of the 11 sparkling wines retail for under $10.

The best selling sparkling wine in the stores for Election Day was the Fresh & Easy Montcadi Cava which retails for under $7.00, according to Simon Uwins, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's director of marketing.

What Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market didn't mention in its press release today regarding the election day doubling of sparkling wine sales was what its pre-election day average sales of sparkling wine is. In other words, what was the average number of bottles sold each day in all the stores before election day, compared to sales on election day? That would have been an interesting figure to include in today's press release in our analysis and opinion. But then we are numbers wonks when it comes to such things.

For example, lets speculate the average sales per day for all of the Fresh & Easy stores combined is one bottle of sparkling wine. In that case, that would mean the stores sold on average two bottles of wine on election day, for a doubling of sales. That's not much in terms of a total dollar sales increase, although it still is a 50% increase, which is nothing to sneeze about even though it wouldn't amount to much of a gross sales increase.

On the other hand, lets speculate on average each store sells five -- or even 10 -- bottles of sparkling wine per day. Then a doubling, to 10 or 20 bottles on election day, would amount to some nice additional gross sales numbers.

Alas, that information isn't available.

And of course, we must merely take the retailer's word that the sparkling wine sales actually doubled on election day over pre-election day sales of the bubbly. We give them the benefit of the doubt and believe them of course. But it would be interesting to know the numbers behind the doubling, for the reasons we describe above, anyway. It would just add some realism -- and additional news weight -- to the doubling factor.

But it is interesting sales of sparkling wine increased at all since Americans aren't known to celebrate Presidential elections with sparkling wine or champagne, or really to celebrate elections much at all in general. Therefore, from a macro political participation sense we see this as a very good sign.

Perhaps with all the attention the historic campaign, and now historic election, of Barack Obama generated, we will see a new era of participation and celebration by American voters in the political process. That would be something well worth tipping a glass of sparkling wine to in celebration for sure.

And good for Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, which is owned and operated by the British retail chain Tesco, for launching and conducting an election day promotion. We didn't see very many U.S.-based and owned grocery chains hold election day promotions for example. It's not the Superbowl we suppose, an event every chain seems to promote heavily.

And searching for further Tesco Fresh & Easy synergy with election day, were it not for the defeat of the British centuries ago by men who were primarily a bunch of former British nationals who became Americans, America not only wouldn't have elections at all today, there wouldn't be a United States of America, let alone blue states (Democrat) and red states (Republican).

Additionally, were it not for the two countries forgiving and forgetting, and becoming close friends and allies, Tesco wouldn't have been able to come to America with its small-format Fresh & Easy grocery and fresh foods chain.

Therefore, we see a certain synergy, beyond merely trying to sell more food and wine, behind the Tesco Fresh & Easy election day promotion.

Meanwhile, it should be interesting to see what further efforts Fresh & Easy does to follow-up on its multiple efforts today to gain increased attention for and to build sales in its wine category. Wine category sales are extremely competitive in California, Nevada and Arizona, where the grocer has its stores, after all.

Fresh & Easy Buzz will be the first to report these efforts, like we have been with the other Tesco Fresh & Easy wine category developments. And of course, like in elections, it is up to you, our readers, to decide.