New 'fresh&easy green things' Eco-Friendly Household Products Line Hitting the Shelves at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

Private Brand Showcase

So far, this week is turning out to be private brand-focused here at Fresh & Easy Buzz, as much due to evolving developments in the segment as it is due to our best-laid editorial plans. (But we also have much more in-store.)

Yesterday and Monday we wrote about Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's new 'Fresh & Easy Kitchen Gourmet' upscale brand of fresh-prepared foods. [Read our stories below on the blog or here - February 8, 2011: Private Brand Showcase Déjà Vu: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Announces its New 'Gourmet' Brand; and February 7, 2011: Getting There First...Plus, Are Tesco's Fresh & Easy and Safeway Traveling Down A Similar Private Brand Aisle?]

Meanwhile, yesterday a Fresh & Easy Buzz correspondent noticed a new line of "green" or eco-cleaning products and paper goods hitting the shelves at a Fresh & Easy market, branded under the retailer's flagship 'fresh&easy' brand. That heads-up was followed by an announcement today from the design firm that created the packaging, London-based P&W.

The new line, called 'fresh&easy green things,' features a variety of hoousehold products - laundry detergents, dish soaps, household cleaners, paper towels, bath tissues, facial tissue - all offering a "green" or sustainable element or proposition.

According to the product labels, the paper products are made from 100% recycled paper and comprised of 80% post-consumer recycled paper or waste. Additionally, no chlorine is used in producing the white paper towels and tissues. Further, the paper products' clear-cello packaging is biodegradable, designed to degrade in 12-18 months.

The key "green" features or propositions of the 'fresh&easy green things' cleaning products are: they're made from plant-based ingredients; are free from phosphates, dyes and perfumes; are pH neutral; biodegradable; and scented with essential oils rather than chemicals.

The packaging of the new 'fresh&easy green things' line was designed for Tesco's Fresh & Easy by London-based P&W, which works extensively with El Segundo, California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Neighborhood Market, as well as with parent company, United Kingdom-based Tesco, on private brand packaging design creation.

The labels on the 'fresh&easy green things' products feature a green leaf, on which the "green things" text is printed, as you can see in the photographs above and at top. The use of the graphic (the green leaf) is designed to reinforce the "green" proposition depicted in the name - "green things" - according to a spokesperson from P&W.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's introduction of its new "green" household products line mirrors similar private brand efforts being made by numerous other grocery chains and mass merchandisers, all trying to cash in on the growing popularity of the sustainable cleaning products and paper goods categories, sales of which are led by consumer packaged goods brands like Seventh Generation, Green Works (Clorox), Simple Green, Green Clean and Mrs. Meyer's (SC Johnson), and Method.

Pleasanton, California-based Safeway Stores, Inc. was one of the first grocery chains to introduce a multi-line "green" or sustainable private brand in the household products segment, when in 2008 it launched its 'Bright Green' store brand, which features eco-friendly products in the household cleaner, paper goods and light bulb categories.

The "green" private brand has done well for Safeway Stores, which since the introduction of the first 27 SKUs in 2008 has continued to grow the number of items under brand 'Bright Green,' along with promoting and marketing the sustainable household products brand in a number of creative ways, including the creation of its "Bright Green Clean Team," which consists of a group of Safeway-sponsored volunteers who wear blue and green (the brand's colors) outfits, and last year cleaned up schools in regions and cities where Safeway operates stores, including Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Southern California and San Francisco, using 'Bright Green' cleaning and paper products.

'Bright Green.' 'Green Things.' In our piece on Monday - February 7, 2011: Getting There First...Plus, Are Tesco's Fresh & Easy and Safeway Traveling Down A Similar Private Brand Aisle? - we asked, as reflected in the title, if Tesco's Fresh & Easy is traveling down a similar private brand road as Safeway Stores is? Fresh & Easy's new 'Green Things' line sure makes that question from two days ago even more interesting to ponder, in our analysis and opinion.