Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Launches New Meat, Poultry, Veggie 'Grill-Pack' Items; 'Bigmista' Going 'On the Road Again'

Private brands, promotional merchandising and adding value (and margin) to food items

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is launching 26 new marinated and ready-to-grill beef, pork, poultry and vegetarian items under the fresh&easy "Let's Grill" brand in its 175 stores in California, Nevada and Arizona in advance of the upcoming summer grilling season.

The new "grill-pack" items, which contain no artificial colors, flavors, high-fructose corn syrup or added trans fats (some have preservatives though) are an expansion of an existing line of "grill-pack" meat items Fresh & Easy offers in its stores.

The new 26-SKU "Lets Grill" line ranges from meat items like Peppered Beef Filet Tips, Ginger and Garlic Petite Sirloin steak, Adobo Beef Steaks, Pollo Asado and Stuffed Red Bell Peppers, to Southwestern-Style Pork Tenderloin, Sausage & Vegetable Brochettes, Tequila & Orange Chicken, Stuffed Portabello Mushrooms and Tangy Tomato Meatball Kabobs.

The retail price-points for the new "grill-pack" items noted above range from a low of $3.99 - Pollo Asado - and $4.99 - Stuffed Red Bell Peppers - to $8.99 for the Peppered Beef Fillet Tips.  A number of the items are being offered at a mix and match price of 2/$5.49, based on purchasing a minimum of two SKUs.

You can view all 26 of the new "fresh&easy "Let's Grill" items, along with the retail prices, here.

As part of the introduction of the 26 new "grill-pack" items, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market said today Neil Strawder, who's known around grilling circles in Southern California as "Bigmista," will be going on the road to various stores again this year, as he did in 2010, offering summer grilling tips - and free BBQ - to Fresh & Easy customers.

Fresh & Easy hasn't announced which stores the grill-master will be visiting first or when his road show will begin. But, according to our sources, the first store barbeque will be in early June, with a series of other store cookouts happening throughout the month and into July and August. At the events held outside the stores, Fresh & Easy serves free barbeque and side-dishes to all who attend.

"Bigmista" recently competed in "The Ultimate BBQ Showdown." The event is being broadcast on CBS May 28th (Memorial Day weekend).

Strawder, who's sworn to secrecy about who won, competed against fellow grill masters Myron Mixon, Tuffy Stone and Bubba Latimer - great names all. The winner receives the "Kingsford Cup" (as in the charcoal briquet brand from consumer products-maker and marketer Clorox Co.) and a cash prize - along with bragging rights, of course.

We reported on and wrote about Strawder's store tour last year. Read those stories here - June 7, 2010: 'Bigmista' Hits the Stores in Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets' Free Barbeque Road Show; and July 9, 2010: 'Bigmista' Hits the Road Again For Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Free Neighborhood BBQ Road Show.

In our June 7 and July 9, 2010 stories we complimented Tesco's Fresh & Easy for coming up with the "Bigmista" road show. However, we offered what we felt was a well-deserved critique of the grocery chain's marketing head and department for not promoting the events in any significant way, which they didn't.

Our critique included noting here that Fresh & Easy missed a perfect opportunity to tie-in the grill-pack items it was promoting at the time and Strawder's store road show with a promotion the grocery chain was doing with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Read about that promotion here - June 3, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Teams Up With The Los Angeles Dodgers in 'Game & Grill Sweepstakes' Promo.

Fresh & Easy tied-in the launch of the 26 new grill-pack items with "Bigmista's" road show in the press release it issued today though, something it didn't do last year, which shows it's learning, as well as perhaps reading Fresh  & Easy Buzz closely.


Neil 'Bigmista' Strawder at the grill on the Fourth of July 2010 at the Fresh & Easy store on Eagle Rock Boulevard in Los Angeles' Glassell Park neighborhood.

The ready-to-grill vegetarian items are a new addition to the grill-packs for Tesco's Fresh & Easy, having focused on beef, pork and poultry previously.

Speaking of our 2010 stories, we suggested in this one on June 7 that adding some vegetarian options to its "grill-pack" line would be a good idea for the grocer to do.

Here's what we said in the last paragraph of our June 7, 2010 piece: "Meanwhile, who doesn't love free barbecue? The answer: Hardly anyone - although vegans might like some grilled veggies to be available. Therefore, we suggest 'Bigmista' stock up for his road show next week, and get a little rest before it starts."

Fresh & Easy has done just that - adding vegetarian options to its "grill-pack" line less than a year later.

Our humor columnist, Earl Grey, also offered his unique take on the subject back on January 29, 2009, shortly after Tesco's Fresh & Easy introduced its first meat "grill packs." Read his piece at: Earl-Grey-At-Large: Fresh & Easy Buzz's Sometime Humor Columnist Drops in For A Bit Of Pre-Super Bowl Musing On 'Carnivores' V. 'Vegetarians.'

The 175-store fresh food and grocery chain has also launched six different salad kits, which you can see here, to tie-in with the ready-to-grill items.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is planning to introduce additional items to the "Let's Grill" line this summer, according to our sources. The first new SKUs should hit the stores in June, our sources tell us, followed by a few more in the July-August period.

The already-marinated, ready-to-grill meats and veggies, which can be prepare either on an outdoor grill, grill pan on the stove, or in one of the ubiquitous electric grills (George Foreman anyone?) found in nearly every kitchen in America, are part of a trend we call "ready to cook," which means everything is done for the consumer, all he or she has to do is grill it, fry it, or pop it in the oven.

"Ready-to-cook" differs from "ready-to-heat" because in the latter case all a person has to do is warm the food product - entree, side-dish - up in a microwave or conventional oven. In contrast, with "ready-to-cook," consumers have to put in slightly more effort, such as making sure they don't over or under cook the meat, poultry or vegetable items.

U.S. grocers and butcher shops have been adding value to meat items for over 30-years,

And from a merchandising and margin perspective, that's exactly what Tesco's Fresh & Easy (and all grocers) is aiming for by offering the value-added meat, poultry and veggie items.

Fresh & Easy can sell the marinated steaks, chicken, pork and veggies for a much higher price, without a huge expense because the marinades and seasonings don't cost much, than it does the same items in their natural state. The desired result: A higher gross margin on the items, which Tesco hopes, along with other efforts it's making, will help lift its operating margin for Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market from its current negative-38% to at least plus-1% as soon as possible.

To put Fresh & Easy's negative-38% margin in perspective, it's difficult t find a U.S. grocery chain or independent that's profitable without a margin that's a least a positive-20%.

And Whole Foods Market, which Tesco's Fresh & Easy positions itself against with the marketing tag-line - "wholesome food that doesn't cost your whole paycheck" - currently has a positive-36% margin, the highest among all U.S. grocery chains.

Fresh & Easy has fun with the Whole Foods "Whole Paycheck" ad slogan - a nickname people are using for the super-successful natural grocery chain much less these days since it's improved its pricing structure and value proposition over the last two years. But we suspect if Whole Foods Market co-founder and co-CEO John Mackey offered to arm wrestle (and he's done stranger things) Fresh & Easy's CEO, Tim Mason - winner gets the other chain's margin - Mason might be tempted to take Mackey up on the proposition.

But grilling and not arm wrestling season is upon us so, to quote "Bigmista" from one of his Fresh & Easy store road show events last year - "Let's Grill."

Related Stories

April 20, 2011: Raley's Supermarkets Introducing New 'Raley's Tonight' Fresh Heat-and-Eat Gourmet Entrees

June 7, 2010: 'Bigmista' Hits the Stores in Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets' Free Barbeque Road Show.

July 9, 2010: 'Bigmista' Hits the Road Again For Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Free Neighborhood BBQ Road Show

June 3, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Teams Up With The Los Angeles Dodgers in 'Game & Grill Sweepstakes' Promo.

May 16, 2010: Two Grocers, Fresh & Easy and Raley's Offer Two Very Different Approaches to Ready-to-Grill Fresh Meat Merchandising

January 29, 2009: Earl-Grey-At-Large: Fresh & Easy Buzz's Sometime Humor Columnist Drops in For A Bit Of Pre-Super Bowl Musing On 'Carnivores' V. 'Vegetarians'

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market and American Express Launch October In-Store Promotion

Promotions & Promotional Merchandising: News/ Analysis/Commentary

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market and American Express have launched an October promotion at the grocer's 168 stores in California, Nevada and Arizona, in which customers who purchase at least four 'fresh&easy' private brand items as part of a minimum single total purchase of $50 will get a $10 credit on their American Express credit or charge card billing statement.

The promotion doesn't apply to debit cards. The $10 credit, for those shoppers who use their American Express cards, amounts to a 20% discount off of the minimum $50 grocery purchase. Alcoholic beverage purchases are exempted from the $50 minimum.

Customers receive the credit from American Express four -to- eight weeks after the promotion ends, which is on October 31, 2010. Additionally, Fresh & Easy customers/American Express credit card-users are limited to just one $10 credit during the promotional period.

The new in-store promotion is the most recent in a series of in-store promotions Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is conducting this year, which was something we suggested first in 2008 and again in 2009 the fresh food and grocery chain needed and needs to be doing to create excitement and drive sales in its stores.

Directly or indirectly, Tesco's Fresh & Easy has taken our advice. For example, below is our extensive coverage and analysis, along with commentary at times, of the grocer's most significant promotional and promotional merchandising activity thus far this year:

>August 2, 2010: Arizona 'Tweeps' Treasure Hunting in Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Twitter-Trivia Contest

>July 19, 2010: Twitter Trivia + In-Store Treasure Hunt Promo Next Up On the 2010 Promotional Hit Parade at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

>June 23, 2010: Integrated Retail & Twitter Wine Promotion Rates Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market A Gold Medal

>February 8, 2010: 'I Taste Therefore I Tweet': Fresh & Easy Set to Hold 'Twitter (Wine) Tasting' Tomorrow Night

>May 11, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Promotion Benefits America's Wounded Warriors

>April 19, 2010: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Joins Kroger Co. in Holding Earth Month-Earth Day Reusable Bag Design Contest

>June 17, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Picks Eight Finalists in its Reusable Bag Design Contest; Website Voting Through June 30

>March 23, 2010: Fresh & Easy Kicks Off Three Week 'From Grapes to Gold Medals' Wine Promotion Tomorrow

>April 25, 2010: Thousands Get 'Cheesy' at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Co-Sponsored Grilled Cheese Competition in Los Angeles (Note: This promotion was initiated by a Fresh & Easy store manager.)

>June 7, 2010: 'Bigmista' Hits the Stores in Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets' Free Barbeque Road Show

>July 9, 2010: 'Bigmista' Hits the Road Again For Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Free Neighborhood BBQ Road Show

>September 16, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Launches 2010 'Shop for Schools' Program; Shopping Nights Add Foot Traffic & Sales

Fresh & Easy's level of promotional activity so far this year is already more than double its 2009 activity.

This is important, and the reason why we highlighted the grocer's lack of promotions in 2008/2009 and suggested it needs to do just what it's doing promotion-wise (regular and varied in-store promos), because even though Fresh & Easy is owned by mega-United Kingdom-based Tesco, it's a start up chain in California, Nevada and Arizona and therefore essentially remains an unknown retail brand.

Tesco continues to lose $200 million-plus a year with Fresh & Easy, which adds impetus to the grocer's most immediate need, which is to increase sales - higher margins and profits will have to come later, although the clock is ticking rapidly to achieve both - which creative and aggressive promotions and promotional merchandising can help achieve.

Varied and regular creative promotions and merchandising-oriented promotions are key for grocers, including those with extremely established retail brands, because they not only help over time to build retail brand, they also create excitement in the stores and drive shoppers to the stores in the short and medium run. For Fresh & Easy, which as job one needs sales and needs to build a base of shoppers who use the stores as primary and secondary food and grocery shopping venues rather then merely using the stores as tertiary or occasional places to shop, such promotional and promotional merchandising programs are therefore even more important.

In the current down economy we aren't sure if a promotion like the American Express $10 credit October event will drive much added business into the stores or increase sales significantly - although the $50 minimum to get $10 back might increase some shopper market basket sizes - because those consumers who can afford to charge on their cards right now probably aren't that concerned about saving the $10, while those shoppers who most need to save the $10 probably either don't have an American Express credit card or if they do are close to or have already maxed out on their credit limit.

But what's key for Tesco with Fresh & Easy is two-fold: (1) Keep trying a variety of different types of promotions - experiment - because there's no better way to find out what works best than by trying it, within reason of course, and (2) Continue with a regular schedule of in-store promotions as a way to try to create excitement around the stores and the brand, drive shoppers into the stores, and hopefully for the grocer increase sales and average customer market basket sizes in the process.

'Bigmista' Hits the Road Again For Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Free Neighborhood BBQ Road Show

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's first free BBQ (pictured above) this summer was on June 4 at the Glassell Park store in Los Angeles, California, which is one of the first six Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores Tesco opened on November 8, 2007. [Photo credit: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.]

Promotions & Special Events

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has added nine new store locations to its free summer neighborhood BBQ road show.

Read: June 7, 2010 - 'Bigmista' Hits the Stores in Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets' Free Barbeque Road Show.

At the event's, Bigmista's Barbeque, which is owned and operated by the husband-and-wife team of Neil and Phyllis Strawder, grills an assortment of beef, chicken, sausage and at times other meat items for customers all for free. Various fresh & easy store brand side-dish items are also served with the grilled meats.

All of the stores are in Southern California. The nine stores, and the dates when 'Bigmista" will be grilling up free BBQ for all comers are:

>Friday, July 9, 2010 - 4 pm - 6 pm: Fresh & Easy at Sunrise & Tahquitz, 102 South Sunrise Way, Palm Springs, California

>Friday, July 16, 2010 - 5 pm - 7 pm: Fresh & Easy at Camino Santa Fe & Mira Mesa, 6755 Mira Mesa, San Diego, California

>Saturday, July 17, 2010 - 4 pm - 6 pm: Fresh & Easy, at Catalina & Canon, 955 Catalina Blvd., San Diego, California

>Friday, July 23, 2010 - 5 pm - 7 pm: Fresh & Easy at Moulton & Ridge Route, 23719 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California

>Friday, July 30, 2010 - 5 pm - 7 pm: Fresh & Easy at Rosecrans & Studebaker, 10930 Rosecrans Ave., Norwalk, California

>Friday, August 6, 2010 - 5 pm - 7 pm: Fresh & Easy at Wendy Drive & Old Conejo, 727 N. Wendy Drive, Newbury Park, California

>Friday, August 13, 2010 - 4 pm - 6 pm: Fresh & Easy at Main & Ammunition, 1101 S. Main, Fallbrook, California

>Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 4 pm - 6 pm: Fresh & Easy at Main & Raymond, 2121 W. Main St, Suite 300, Alhambra, California

>Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 4 pm - 6 pm: Fresh & Easy at Tampa & Nordhoff , 19350-A W Nordhoff St, Northridge, California

Neil 'Bigmista' Strawder works the grill on June 4, 2010 at the Glassell Park Fresh & Easy store at 4211 Eagle Rock Blvd in northeastern Los Angeles, California. [Photo credit: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.]

Good promotional event

In Fresh & Easy Buzz's analysis and opinion, the free BBQ road show is a good promotion by Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market for a number of reasons. Here are four below:

The "neighborhood" aspect of the event ties-in well with Fresh & Easy's mission of being a neighborhood market, for example. As such, the promotional events reinforce that message, in our analysis.

Additionally, the free BBQ's at store-level tie-in well to items Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is promoting for the summer grilling season - fresh meats and poultry, side-dishes, beverages, condiments, fresh produce and other related items.

There are few things better when it comes to promotional events than allowing shoppers to see, smell and taste the products a grocer is promoting in its stores. On that level the events add a sensory - see, touch and taste - element to the food, beverage and non-food items Fresh & Easy is promoting over the summer.

The events also add excitement at store level. 'Bigmista' is a vocal guy and draws people to him. And there's nothing like a little fire to get people's hearts pumping - not to mention the smell of meat and poultry cooking on the grill. When a grocer can draw a crowd around a store, even if many of the folks aren't shopping, it has creates excitement - which often can lead to purchases, if not on that particular day, on another one.

Lastly, it hard to get any better than free when it comes to promotions. And who doesn't love free BBQ. Such events can generate considerable goodwill for a grocer among consumers. Good will is a good thing to create - even if it costs a few bucks in terms of 'Bigmista's' fee and some product for the BBQ's.

In summary, it's our analysis that the store-level free BBQ roadshow promotional event is solid and integrates well into the neighborhood grocer mission of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, as well as the summer grilling season product promotions the grocer is offering in its weekly advertising circular and in-store.

'Bigmista' Hits the Stores in Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets' Free Barbeque Road Show

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is taking its free summer barbeque road show to three stores in the next two weeks, one each in California's Central Valley, Las Vegas and Phoenix, Arizona, following its first store-level event on June 4 at its Fresh & Easy grocery market in Los Angeles' Glassell Park neighborhood, at 4211 Eagle Rock Boulevard. [See a selection of photos from that event here.]

See our June 3 story: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Teams Up With The Los Angeles Dodgers in 'Game & Grill Sweepstakes' Promo

At the event's, Bigmista's Barbeque, which is owned and operated by the husband-and-wife team of Neil and Phyllis Strawder, grills an assortment of beef, chicken, sausage and at times other meat items for customers, all for free. Various fresh & easy store brand side dish items are also served with the grilled meats.

Here's what's on tap and where it's happening:

>Fresh & Easy, Shaw & Willow, Clovis, California. Date: Friday, June 18, 2010, 5-7 p.m. Address: 790 West Shaw Avenue, Clovis, CA

>Fresh & Easy, Fort Apache & Desert Inn, Las Vegas, Nevada. Date: Saturday, June 19, 2010, 4-6 p.m. Address: 9475 W. Desert Inn Road, Las Vegas, NV

>Fresh & Easy, West Indian School & 7th Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona. Date: Saturday, June 26, 2010, 4-6 p.m. Address: 635 West Indian School Road, Phoenix, AZ

During the time periods listed above at each store - as supplies last - Grill Master Neil 'Bigmista' Strawder serves up free barbeque to all comers.

Strawder has gained a reputation in Southern California as the "go to guy" for barbeque - be it ribs, chicken or brisket. In addition to doing events for Tesco's Fresh & Easy, Bigmista and his wife and partner Phyllis also do serious barbeque business at Southern California farmers markets, operate a food truck and do catering. The couple's website is here.

The free summer barbeque road show is a way for Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market to promote its 14 varieties of "grill packs," which are packaged fresh meat items featuring various meats, including combinations like its chicken, pork sausage and quarter-pound beef patty combo pack.

The grocery chain also introduced eight new value-added grill pack items right before the beginning of the Memorial Day grilling season. It's currently promoting those items, along with the other grill packs, in its stores. [May 16, 2010: Two Grocers, Fresh & Easy and Raley's Offer Two Very Different Approaches to Ready-to-Grill Fresh Meat Merchandising]

Additionally, Fresh & Easy has launched a summer grilling season sweepstakes promotion with the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, which ties into its store-level free barbeque road show. [Read our story on the promotion - June 3, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Teams Up With The Los Angeles Dodgers in 'Game & Grill Sweepstakes' Promo.]

Interesting, the tie-in conclusion is our reporting, not from Fresh & Easy. The grocer hasn't tied the two events into a marketing message, nor publicized it as such, despite the fact it's an excellent summer promotional event waiting for a marketing person at the grocery chain to put some effort into. It would be a real missed opportunity not to combine the related events and promote them comprehensively in order to create real excitement (and incremental sales) and get all the bang for the buck out of the promotional expenditures as possible, in our analysis and opinion. Perhaps it's coming?

Meanwhile, who doesn't love free barbeque? The answer: Hardly anyone - although vegans might like some grilled veggies to be available. Therefore, we suggest 'Bigmista' stock up for his road show next week, and get a little rest before it starts.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Teams Up With The Los Angeles Dodgers in 'Game & Grill Sweepstakes' Promo

Promotional Merchandising

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has teamed up with the Los Angeles Dodgers Major League Baseball team in what's being billed as a 'Game & Grill Sweepstakes' summer grilling season promotion, which kicks off today.

Shoppers can enter the sweepstakes portion of the promotion [click here] for a chance to win four Dugout Club-level tickets to a Dodgers game. Those are excellent seats, by the way.

In addition, the winner gets all the free food they can eat while watching the game, according to Tesco's Fresh & Easy. Based on the quantity of food and drink some fans put away while watching a Dodgers game, that could be a big bill for the grocer.

The second, third and fourth place winners in the sweepstakes each also get a prize: A $50 Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Gift Card.

Here's how Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market positions the promotion and sweepstakes, which is featured on the Los Angeles Dodgers' team website:

"Tasty grilled food and exciting baseball. It's a classic summertime combination and it's why fresh&easy and the Los Angeles Dodgers have teamed up for an incredible sweepstakes. After all, what could be better than enjoying delicious food while watching the game from some of the best seats in the park? Just enter the sweepstakes below and you could win tickets to the Dugout Club and all the food you can eat while you're there! fresh&easy has low prices on everything you need for grilling all season long. From their Grill Pack to a wide selection of snacks and drinks, they make game day grilling simple. Find your nearest store at freshandeasy.com."

Along with the sweepstakes, Fresh & Easy is featuring a number of its fresh & easy store brand fresh meat, side dish and beverage items at special prices on the Dodgers' website as part of the promotion. We give Tesco's Fresh & Easy bonus points for including the tie-in, something we regularly preach grocers should do. You can view the items here.

Partnering with the Dodgers on the grilling season promotion and sweepstakes is a good idea for Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, in our analysis and opinion: It gives the grocer a strong third-party endorsement from a popular Southern California institution - the Dodgers; ties the grocery chain in with America's pastime - baseball (not a bad idea for a British grocer); and comes at a good time - the official start of summer grilling season. Americans grill about five times more than average from Memorial Day until the end of August, for example.

The promotion with the Dodgers also comes shortly after Fresh & Easy's introduction of a new line of eight value-added fresh meat grill packs. Read our recent story - May 16, 2010: Two Grocers, Fresh & Easy and Raley's Offer Two Very Different Approaches to Ready-to-Grill Fresh Meat Merchandising. The Dodgers' promotion is good timing as a way to hang a lantern on the introduction of the new grill pack items.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market also is kicking off a series of free store-level grilling events featuring Bigmista's Barbeque, which is owned and operated by the husband-and-wife team of Neil and Phyllis Strawder. The new grill pack items will be featured at the in-store grilling events.

The first 'Bigmista' grilling event is tomorrow (June 4) from 5 -to- 7 p.m at the Fresh & Easy store at 4211 Eagle Rock Blvd in Los Angeles, California. In addition to free grilling tips - and free bbq - from grill master Neil Strawder, Fresh & Easy is giving out free reusable canvas shopping bags to the first 150 customers in attendance at the store in Los Angeles' Glassell Park neighborhood.

Fresh & Easy Buzz has suggested for a couple years now that Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market needs to do these types of promotions, which tie in store-level merchandising activity with third party promotional partnerships, on a regular, organized basis. We haven't seen much of it until just recently though.

But in a positive sign this promotion comes right on the heels of an in-store and weekly advertising flyer promotional tie-in Fresh & Easy just finished in partnership with the consumer packaged goods company Unilever and the non-profit organization Operation Homefront, which serves as a lifeline for America's wounded warriors and their families. Read our May 11, 2010 piece - May 11, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Promotion Benefits America's Wounded Warriors. (The grocer ended up extending the promotion to June 1 so that it would overlap Memorial Day, by the way.)

As a result, perhaps Tesco's Fresh & Easy has seen the logic of our suggestion. The reason such promotions can and generally are powerful is not only do they create extensive awareness for a grocer - if promoted properly - but they also partner the grocer with a third party - such as Operation Homefront and the Dodgers in these two examples - which allows a retailer to leverage the good will and other positive attributes of the third parties onto its brand image.

Additionally, such promotions are good because they extend a grocer out into its community and the larger world - the world where customers and potential customers live. Doing so humanizes a grocer, makes it a stronger part of the community, and ties it in to where we all live and breath.

Such promotions must be regular though, not just sporadic. They need to part of a comprehensive, overall promotional merchandising strategy that's part of and tied-in to a grocery chain's marketing strategy.

New grocers on the block like Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market need to create excitement regardless of the size of their parent company. Tesco may be the third or fourth largest retailer in the world but in California, Nevada and Arizona Fresh & Easy is just another grocer; and a young one at that.

Creating excitement through old fashion promotional merchandising like the Los Angeles Dodgers and in-store grilling event tie-in promotion is one way Fresh & Easy can create real excitement around its brand and stores - the type of excitement that sells groceries, not just grabs headlines.

Merchandising Report: Touch Me and I'm Yours

This fresh produce says: Touch me, fondle me, caress me. I'm farm fresh, ripe, succulent and delicious. Go ahead, feel me and see for yourself. Touch me and make me yours.

Two Ohio State University researchers conducted an experiment recently in which they set out to test the proposition that consumers are more likely to buy an item in a store if they first touch and fondle it. All good food and grocery merchandisers know this, which is why good produce department managers and others build massive displays of product, creating not only a visually appealing, but also a tactile opportunity for shoppers to interact with the product. It's all about appealing to shoppers' senses - visual, touch, taste, smell.

The two Ohio State researchers also say they found an even more interesting result from their study: That shoppers are willing to pay more for an item if they touch it first. They suggest handling an item in a store creates an attachment between the shopper and the item touched, which leads that shopper to be more likely to buy the item, and to even pay a higher price for it, than if he or she hasn't touched or handled the item first.

Fresh & Easy Buzz isn't sure we completely buy that finding based on the study. We think there might be some third variables involved. For example, we suspect the retail price of the item, touched or not, plays a major part in the consumer purchasing decision. We also suspect a key variable is whether or not the shopper planned to purchase such an item prior to entering the store. In other words, how much of the purchase decision is pre-planned vs. impulse.

We do believe, based on extensive experience though, that shoppers will purchase higher priced food and grocery products such as fresh produce, specialty foods and related items, if they are displayed in a visually appealing way that encourages shoppers to pick-up and touch the items. And we all know food tastings, which appeal to another human sense, taste, work to sell product, not to mention the power of smell, say fresh bread baking in the in-store bakery.

For example, we've done experiments at retail in which we've placed identical quality items next to each other, in which one display is "plain Jane" and the other visually attractive and designed so that shoppers are tempted to touch the items in that display. (We've also used simple, cute signs on the displays that say "touch me." They work.) We then observed the shoppers. Overwhelmingly they pick up, touch and buy the items in the more appealing display, which also are priced higher than the identical items in the less than appealing display next to it, and in most instances shoppers purchase the more expensive item they've touched rather than the identical item next to it which is priced for less. Again, it's all about appealing to the human senses, in this case visual and tactile.

In these retail experiments we've noticed that a key variable is the difference in price between the two items in the displays. Shoppers tend to go for the higher priced (more visually appealing and tactile-encouraging display) if its no more than about 30% higher than the other display (the "Plain Jane"). But when we doubled the price on items the shopper purchasing behavior dropped significantly, even though a number of shoppers still picked up the items in the more appealing displays.

Despite our cautions as to the Ohio State researchers' results, what the researchers found in their controlled study is similar to what we've observed in the retail experiments we've done and described above. That in part is why Fresh & Easy Buzz was interested in the researchers' work; and why we are publishing it in this piece.

Andrea Thompson, a staff writer for the Web site LiveScience.com has an overview piece on the Ohio State Researchers' study. You can read that piece here. There also are links to the actual study there.

The Ohio State researchers used non-consumable products in their study, such as a coffee mug. However, when it comes to tactile sensations, as every good food and grocery merchandiser knows intuitively, fresh foods and packaged goods are the perfect vehicle for merchandising in ways that encourage shoppers to interact with the items.

But good food and grocery merchandisers also know that in tough economic times like today economics plays a major role in shopper purchasing decisions regardless if they touch an item or not. But we do believe touch is such a key aspect to shopping (just watch women shop in a clothing boutique, or men in a sporting goods store, for example) that we suspect when it comes to higher prices goods many shoppers are avoiding touching items they want but know they can't afford in this current down economy. Why create an attachment to those $250 designer stiletto high heels, or that $200 golf putter -- or even those $6.99 per pound organic purple heirloom tomatoes we avoided touching (and buying) at Whole Foods Market the other day -- when you know you can't (or shouldn't) afford to purchase them, after all.

The Ohio State research, along with our explanations of the experiments we conducted at retail, are important pieces of information for retailers and merchandisers of all sorts though in bad economic times like the current recession. That's because when sales are down across the board like they are currently, and in particular in the case of higher margin food and grocery items, it's even more important to get creative in terms of merchandising and display building.

Retailers and other merchandisers need to wake shoppers up in-store right now like never before with visually appealing and tactile-encouraging displays and other forms of merchandising. That's where the added and incremental sales will come from.

For those retailers and outside merchandisers reading this, we suggest you try some of the experiments we've described. Use cute and humorous signs on a display that ask shoppers to "touch me." Take an item you sell on the shelf everyday say for $1.59. Build an attractive and tactile-encouraging display using it, then mark the item up to $1.99 and see what happens. Even try this: Put a sign on that display that says: "I might not be cheap...but I'm worth it... Touch me and find out for yourself." Tough times require innovation and creativity.

And for shoppers, beware of displays like the one we just suggested above. Don't let such "merchandising" force you to spend more money than you need to at the grocery store. Compare product quality, container size and price. And remember, when you see displays in a store like we've described, know they are there to encourage impulse buys. But don't avoid such displays completely, as grocery retailers often use displays to offer some of their best deals in-store.

One thing is for sure: touching, including touching products, is something that's innate to us as humans. That much every schoolboy knows.