Vox Populi: The People Speak and Opine About Fresh & Easy Stores

Brandon C. isn't a big Fresh & Easy fan. "I did not find Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market to be fresh or easy, he says, writing at the online review site yelp.com. It seems Brandon bought a package of Ciabatta bread rolls one day. The next day, when he was ready to dig into the rolls, he says they were already bad--"gone south," to quote him. He says when he checked the "sell by" date, the package had already reached it's experation date before he bought it.

This isn't the first we've heard of code dating--and freshness--problems at Fresh & Easy, by the way. It's frequent. Frequent enough in fact that the grocer has now started a markdown program in some of its stores in which it offer various percentage discounts depending on how close to the experation date a fresh product is. Fifty-percent reductions aren't uncommon since this markdown experiment started recently in some stores. Not a good sign.

Unlike Brandon though, Debbie T. of Los Angeles loves the Fresh & Easy store she shops at, she says. Some of her reasons why: "Yum, (prepared) Chicken Marsala for only $3.99," she says. "Guava nectare. I made guava margaritas (with it) last weekend. Chocolate chip cookie dough. Good raw, even better baked," she says.

Debbie T. says: "I'm really impressed with the Fresh & Easy, and so is my neighbor. The place is clean, convenient, and the food is really good, and you cannot beat the prices. A wonderful addition to the neighborhood,"she says.

Ben C., also from Los Angeles, thinks Fresh & Easy "is awesome." He also says he thinks the fresh produce and prepared foods are better than those at Trader Joe's.

However, Maximillian M. from Los Angeles is more in the Brandon C. Camp vis-a-vis Fresh & Easy. A few words from Max: "I couldn't help giggle at the name Fresh & Easy. It reminds me of how one would describe a really bad couple who weren't meant for each other." He says Trader Joe's doesn't have much to worry about."

In addition to the points of view of the four consumers discussed above, you can read what nine more Fresh & Easy grocery store customers have to say--their likes, dislikes, suggestions for improvement--here

The Perishable Pundit Gets a Missive From A Man Who Comes Back From Out of the Cold of the Tesco Battles; The Pundit Provides A Case Analysis

Jim Prevor, who writes and publishes the food and grocery industry online publication the 'Perishable Pundit," recently recieved an email missive from a food industry operative who's sold to and dealt with Tesco across the pond in the UK for many years. The missive from the industry veteran, who's now decided to come back out of the cold--although his name is protected for obvious reasons--addresses what he sees as Tesco's shortcomings, which he thinks could lead to failure for its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market USA venture.

Using this piece of British intellegence as source material, the Perishable Pundit assumes the position of intellegence analyst, and combines this new data with other data he previous has assembled on Tesco's Fresh & Easy small-format grocery store venture in the U.S., and offers a brief titled: "British Intellegence on Tesco: Three areas of Concern," on his website today.

Read Jim Prevor's analytical piece here.

KathyVegas Loves her Las Vegas Fresh & Easy Baby!

Writing in a post on the seriouseats.com website, an online forum where food lovers go to share food ideas, restaurants and grocery store thoughts and opinions, Las Vegas, Nevada resident KathyVegas gives an ace-high full house to her local Fresh & Easy grocery market in that city. (There are currently five Fresh & Easy stores in the Las Vegas metropolitan region.)

Breaking the Las Vegas code of 'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,' KathyVegas says after three shopping trips to the store she "thinks she's in love," and spills the beans on what she likes about the store.

Read what KathyVegas particularly "loves" about her local Las Vegas Fresh & Easy store here.

It Looks Like Somebody is Minding the Fresh & Easy Corporate Blog A Bit Better of Late

On January 21, we wrote in this piece, "Click, Click: Who's Minding the Fresh & Easy Corporate Blog," that it had been over five weeks since Fresh & Easy neighborhood marketing chief Simon Uwins or one of his staffers has made a post on the corporate blog, which the retailer designed and has used as one of its "marketing and communication tools."

Further, in the January 21 piece we suggested that blogs are great extensions of a retail storefronts in terms of being used as an electronic marketing and communications device. However, just like actual retail storefronts, which become a minus rather than a plus when they are neglected, so too do corporate blogs become a negative rather than a positive tool when they are neglected. [Read our January 21, 2007 piece here.]

We are pleased today though to see, after checking the Fresh & Easy corporate blog, that the frequency of posts from either Mr. Uwins or one of his staffers has increased considerably after we wrote that piece on January 21. [We aren't saying we had anything to do with this occurance. Rather, that its just nice to see it happening since it's something we wrote about.]

Since we wrote the piece on January 21, there have been three posts, each about a week apart. The latest post was on February 8, six days ago. That means in keeping with this every seven days or so interval it looks like the corporate bloggers has now established, a new post should be coming from Uwins and company in the next few days.

If you read our January 21 piece, you will notice we suggested that in the name of good communications, the corporate blog should publish some type of new news or information at least once a week. Again, we are pleased to see that's about the frequency of updates since we wrote our piece.

Finally, in our January 21 piece we talked about the fact the corporate bloggers don't answer reader questions in the comments section of the the blog. Specifically, we noted the December 14 blog posting in which there are three questions from readers who took the time to "talk back" to the bloggers. [See the questions here.] However, the Fresh & Easy corporate bloggers haven't even taken the time to reply to the readers--and perhaps Fresh & Easy store customers'--questions.

As of today--February 14--those reader questions still haven't been responded to by Uwins or one of his staffers. This is poor customer service. It only takes a couple minutes to respond--and those couple minutes could create a store customer, not too mention word of mouth praise for the marketing team.

We would hope the Fresh & Easy corporate bloggers answer those questions and make it a policy from now on to respond--even with a single sentence--to any questions asked in the reader comments section of the blog.

Marketing is everything a retailer does. It's store-level, and cyber-level as well. Corporate blogs, like retail stores, need to be kept fresh. Regular updating, interesting selections, graphics (in-store and online) and good two-way communication are all key. We're pleased to see the post-January 21 face-lift at the Fresh & Easy corporate blog. If Mr. Uwins and company can improve the blog's customer service level by taking the time to respond to reader questions in the comments' section, we might just be able to call it a complete refurbishing. We will be watching closely.

Note: Fresh & Easy Buzz is an independent blog and has no affiliation with Tesco or Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in any way, shape or form.

Is Tesco's Fresh & Easy Playing the Fiddle While Palm Springs' 'Burns' for A Trader Joe's?

Today's addition of the Desert Sun, the daily newspaper for the Southern California desert city of Palm Springs, reports that a neighborhood coalition wants a Trader Joe's grocery store in its city so bad, it's launched a petition drive to convince the retailer to open a store in this residential and resort town of about 75,000 residents.

According to David Carden Jr., chairman of the Baristo Neighborhood Coaltion in Palm Springs, the group has thus far obtained 3,500 signatures towards its goal of 5,000 on a petition asking Trader Joe's to open one of its 10,000 square foot specialty grocery stores in the city. Carden told the Desert Sun the coalition hopes to reach its goal by April 11, 2008. (Read the full Desert Sun story here.)

Palm Springs, which is located in the Southern California desert region, is not only a fast-growing residential area and one of the top retirement communities in the U.S., it also has a thriving tourism and convention industry--one of the biggest in the country in fact. The city is especially packed with tourists in the winter months (January through March) when the temperatures in the city and surrounding region are in the 90's, and often hit over 100 degrees. The city's demographics and overall income level fits very well with the types of locations Trader Joe's seeks out for its grocery stores.

Community groups petitioning Trader Joe's in this manner isn't that unusual. For example, a group in Albany, New York is currently conducting a similar petition drive--along with an agressive and professional lobbying and PR campaign--aimed at convincing Trader Joe's their city is worthy (and the demand is there) of a TJ's grocery store. A group in Nashville, Tenessee is doing the same.

Numerous other cities in the U.S. have launched similar petition drives designed to hopefully bring one of the popular Trader Joe's stores to their respective towns. In 2000, citizens in the Southern California city of Long Beach were successful in getting TJ's attention with such a petition drive and PR program--and as a result Trader Joe's built and opened a grocery store in that city.

This is the type of consumer demand most food retailers would trade a lifetime's worth of free groceries for. Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market would love this level of demand in Palm Springs (and elsewhere), for example. However, despite the fact the retailer will soon open a Fresh & Easy store in Palm Springs, the neighborhood coaltion still wants a Trader Joe's. That isn't a critique of Fresh & Easy so much as its testimate to the brand strength of TJ's. However, it is something Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market senior management should study and learn from we believe.

Perhaps the Palm Springs' group doesn't even know Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market will soon open one of it's 10,000 -to- 13,000 square foot grocery markets--which have many similarities to TJ's, but also a number of differences--in the desert city soon. Of course, we think they should know, since Fresh & Easy has a number of its grocery stores located right around Palm Springs, and just opened a new store two days ago in the neighboring city of Palm Desert. Plus, it's not like their hasn't been any publicity regarding the British grocer's petite grocery stores in Southern California.

With these facts and realities in mind regarding Treader Joe's, here are a few things we would do immediatly upon reading this news if we were part of Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market senior management team:

>Call Mr. David Cardon Jr., head of the Palm Springs' neighborhood coalition, and invite him to a "coffee date" in downtown Palm Springs. At coffee, give him a brief overview of Fresh & Easy, including an overview about the new store that's set to open soon in Palm Springs. (Note: pay for his coffee and a pastry for him.)

Also during coffee, ask him if you and another of your Fresh & Easy collegues can meet with the Baristo Neighborhood Coalation, give them a brief presentation, and most importantly, ask them for their input in what they want in their Fresh & Easy that the stores' don't currently have. (We suspect they will tell you they want a numer of things TJ's stores have.) Bring them some Fresh & Easy fresh brewed coffee and a variety of treats on meeting night, by the way.

>Once you have informed the group about the coming Palm Springs Fresh & Easy grocery store, and listened to and written down all of their comments about why they want a Trader Joe's in Palm Springs so much, the hard work begins. You, Fresh & Easy executives, will need to decide what new elements, from the input from the group, you will implement in the Palm Springs Fresh & Easy store that just might be in your format. In other words, localization within the basic Fresh & Easy format blueprint.

We suggest you incorporate most of what they tell you they want into that store. You know the reason why: the group wants a Trader Joe's so bad in Palm Springs they're willing to work for it. We know Fresh & Easy is new, but we don't hear any groups--or even a single Plam Springs resident--creating much of a demand for one of your stores. We mean no offense; just telling you what we have learned.

Tesco needs to localize Fresh & Easy's style and merchandising mix

This gets us to the major point we're trying to make to Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in this piece, with the help of the Palm Springs coaltion, who provide a perfect real life example. That point is: Tesco seriously needs to localize its Fresh & Easy stores more, including parts of the store design, its offerings, and its product mix.

We think Tesco can use its basic Fresh & Easy format as the template. However, within that basic template or blueprint, the stores need to be given more local positioning and a sense of place. For example:

>Design and sense of place: Tesco needs to put the "Neighborhood" in Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores. The stores are supposed to be neighborhhod grocery stores, where people shop around, spend time, and buy a cart full of groceries. Rather, from our observation people are shopping the stores in the main like they do basic convenience stores. In other words, just buying a few items on their store trips. We bet the stores' average ring, an important food retailing metric, bears us out on this.

Tesco also needs to create some warmth, and more of a sense of place in the Fresh & Easy stores. We suggest one way Tesco can create this needed sense of place in the stores is to borrow a page from Tesco stores in the UK that have "Tesco Cafes," in-store cafe's like those so common in many American supermarkets today.

Since Fresh & Easy Stores are small (10,000 -to- 13,000 square feet on average) the "Fresh & Easy Cafe" can be smaller than those in supermarkets. We suggest an intimate, approximately 600 square foot petite cafe inside the store (not all stores neccessarily) as one way to create a sense of place in the grocery markets, as well as to encourage shoppers to spend more time in the stores. For example, Starbucks has numerous cafe's this size in supermarkets and in chain bookstores. They are very successful and add to the supermarket's or book store's overall sense of place, along with allowing customers to linger, and buy more.

Localization within the format template: The Western U.S., especially California, is the U.S. mecca for specialty and natural foods, groceries and other products. It has more producers in these categories than any other region in the country. It's also the per-capita number-one region (California the number-one state) in terms of specialty, natural and organic products consumption. California is the food products' trend setter; south and north. And "local" is big, no huge, in California among consumers.

However, when you walk into one of the numerous Fresh & Easy grocery stores in Southern California or Arizona, you see none of these facts and phenomenon's represented. No major offerings of southwestern foods in the Arizona stores, no extensive "made in California" merchandising in the Southern California stores, and no focus on the many local, artisan food and grocery product purveyers who populate both states in droves.

[Note: California also is the nation's number one and its most diverse agricultural producing state. California (and Arizona) consumers love large displays of fresh, bulk produce. It's what they are used to. That's one reason they love the state's many farmers' markets so much. The packaged fresh produce--which Fresh & Easy gets in bulk from suppliers and then packages at its distribution center--isn't going to make it, especially in California. If Fresh & Easy were to go to a quality, bulk fresh produce merchandising scheme instead of the current packaged one, we believe they would see at least an immediate 30%-40% increase in sales in the fresh produce category.]

The local angle plays a strong part again here with fresh produce. California has a bounty of fresh fruit and vegetable growers. In fact, Southern California is full of them. However, visit a Fresh & Easy grocery store in Southern California, and you're hard-pressed to find anything in the way of "locally-grown" fresh produce. That's a huge marketing mistake.

[Note to Fresh & Easy: Tip O' Neill, the famed former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was famous for saying: "All Politics is Local." He never lost an election, including the one among all his "local" fellow Congressman that made him Speaker, by remembering and practicing that motto for about 60 years in politics.

To paraphrase Tip O' Neill from a Fresh & Easy perspective: in the Western USA--especially in California--"Local is King." This doesn't mean Fresh & Easy must throw away the format. What it does mean is that success will come when the grocer uses that format as its template--and then localizes its stores to reflect a given community's history, culture, present and demograpics. This is one important key to Whole Foods Market, Inc.'s sucess. They even "localize" stores to neighborhoods within the same city, while keeping their basic format blueprint intact.

This localization needs to include design elements to the stores in addition to the product mix. For example, Tesco has signed leases for 18 stores in Northern California to date. The stores are to be opened in late 2008 or early 2009. Among those 18 stores include markets in San Francisco, Oakland and Napa.

These three cities offer perfect examples to explain the importance of localization within the format template. Each city has a rich and unique history, as do most California cities. Napa is America's premiere wine growing and producing region, as well as the country's number one place for specialty, natural and artisian foods innovation. We would hope a Napa Fresh & Easy store would reflect much of those facts in its design elements and product mix.

San Francisco, as we all know, is the culinary co-capital of the U.S., along with New York City. It's also a former gold rush town, and is today one of the top high-tech and internet-oriented business centers in the world. Additionally, San Francisco is a city of neighborhoods, each one having a distinct history and unique present. These elements should be reflected in any Fresh & Easy grocery store located in San Francisco. If not, San Francisco shoppers--who are major boosters of their city--will avoid the stores, branding them as just another cokkie-cutter chain.

Oakland, across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco, also has a unique history. Whole Foods' celebrated a major element of that city's history by building a store near the city's downtown that is designed like a European food hall, rather than like it's more typical format stores. The reason the grocer did this is the store's location sits right near a site that was a famous european-style food hall for decades, until there was a fire and the market, called Houswives Market, was eventually torn down. Despite this customization, Whole Foods still was able to use its basic format blueprint.

A Fresh & Easy in Oakland (there are three on tap thus far) need not be taken to this extreme in terms of localization--although Oakland loves its Whole Foods' Market Hall store. However, by not localizing the three stores to the history, culture and neighborhoods of Oakland, Tesco will likely decrease their odds of success with the stores in that city by at least 50% we believe.

Fresh & Easy needs some new direction

These are just a few examples of the direction we believe Tesco needs to go with its Fresh & Easy format and stores. There are a number of other suggestions we have based on lots of observation and research, but we will save those concepts and ideas for another time.

For now, using the Trader Joe's consumer demand phenomenon as a guide, it's our analysis that Fresh & Easy needs to do some serious evaluation of its format and operations, and to create more of a sense of place in the stores, localize the product merchandising mixes in the stores much better than they currently are, and institute a store design localization element, whereby the stores better reflect the history, culture and the present elements of the community and neighborhood they are located in.

A San Diego Foodie Evaluates A Fresh & Easy Grocery Market in Her Neighborhood

alice q. foodie, writer of the alice q. foodie blog, has been shopping at a new Fresh & Easy grocery market near her neighborhood in the seaside city of San Diego, California for a couple weeks.

Writing in her blog yesterday, the San Diego foodie offers her analysis and opinions of that Fresh & Easy grocery store, which is located at 9665 Campo Road. She talks about what she likes and doesn't like about Fresh & Easy, along with suggestions for improvement.

Here are a few highlights:

>alice q. foodie isn't impressed with Fresh & Easy's selection of pastries and baked goods. She says she stopped by the store last week to pick up some pastries to take to the office but didn't buy any because all the store offered were packaged sweets along the lines of Enteman's. Listening Fresh & Easy management? How about some fresh pastries and baked goods in the stores, along with the packaged stuff. We suggest you look into offering locally-produced pastries and muffins in your Southern California stores. There are numerous local producers of fine quality nearby. Carrying these local baked goods also will help localize the Fresh & Easy product mix, which needs it. Note: Just like in the UK, buying local is big now in the USA.

>The San Diego foodie and blogger loved the two sandwiches--a chicken salad and a mozzarella cheese, tomato and arugala--she bought for lunch though. She also loved the fact they only cost $3.00 each. Tasty and inexpensive is her evaluation.

>Fresh & Easy's prepared, heat-and-eat foods don't impress Alice q. foodie very much though. She feels the calorie counts on many of the entrees is just way too high. On the other hand, she says she can't get enough of the store's vegetable somosas, which she buys, takes home, and eats right from the fridge.

>alice q. likes the prepared salads and soups, and thinks Fresh & Easy has a "very decent" selection of cheeses. She also likes the prices on Fresh & Easy brand ice cream and gelato.

>The San Diego food maven wants the store(s) to carry a wider-range of organic grocery items though. And she wants more of a selection of healthier prepared foods items. Note to Fresh & Easy management:

We agree with alice q. foodie on this one too. Fresh & Easy's organic products' selection is poor--and it isn't a good mix, especially in Southern California. Take our word on this one, we've been picking natural and organic product mixes for food stores in California and elsewhere for a long time. There are certain organic grocery brands and items within categories (condiments, teas, ect.) that are most popular overall in California. You have many of the wrong items in Fresh & Easy. The mix needs evaluating and changing.

Our summary is merely the tip of the iceberg regarding Alice q. foodies excellent analysis and opinion of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, and the store she's been shopping at the last couple weeks. Read all that Alice q. foodie has to say about Fresh & Easy here.

New Fresh & Easy Store Opened Today in the Southern California Inland Empire Region City of Moreno Valley

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market opened its 44th small-format grocery store today in Southern California's Inland Empire desert region, a key market for the grocer. The approximately 13,000 square foot grocery and fresh foods market opened this morning in the city of Moreno Valley, at 2505 Alessandro Blvd @ Parris Blvd.

The huge desert Inland Empire region is a key market in Fresh & Easy's Southern California strategy. The retailer has said it plans to open about 48 stores in the region. It's first Fresh & Easy store opened in the area city of Hemet in late October, 2007. The grocer currently has stores in the Inland Empire cities of Upland, Indio and San Jacinto, in addition to Hemet and Moreno Valley.

Tesco will open the next new Fresh & Easy grocery store in the Inland Empire region on February 20, in Palm Desert, at 72885 Hwy. 111. Palm Desert is an upscale residentail community. It's also a major tourist area, with many people from California having second homes in the city and surrounding area. Its been growing rapidly as well, with many new jobs being created in the gaming and tourism industries. Most forms of gambling are legal in the region because California state law allows Indian Tribes--which are numerous in the area--to own and operate Las Vegas-style casino's, which many tribes do.

Following the opening of the Palm Desert store next week, the retailer will open another new Inland Empire region store on February 27 at 8765 Trautwein Road @ Buren Avenue in Riverside, and a store at 829 W. Foothill Blvd. in Upland on the same day.

Tesco says it plans to have the 48 stores in the two-county (Riverside and San Bernardino counties) region open and operating before the end of 2009. The retailer is shooting for having as many as 300 stores open and operating in California, Arizona and Nevada by the end of next year.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market grocery stores average about 10,000 -to- 13,000 square feet. The markets' feature a combination of Fresh & Easy brand private label and nationally-branded basic, everyday grocery items at resonable prices, fresh meats and fresh produce, specialty and organic groceries, and an extensive selection of fresh, prepared foods, ranging from basic items like meatloaf and macaroni & cheese, to upscale items like Thai food entrees, Sirloin Steak Tips in Burgundy Wine Sauce, and indulgent ready-to-eat upscale desert items, for example.