Tesco Fresh & Easy Update

Tesco Announces Las Vegas-Area Store Openings

Five Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets to Open on November 14

Tesco today announced the opening of its first five Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores in the Las Vegas, Nevada metropolitan region. The five stores will open at 10:AM on November 14, just six days after the grand opening of its first six stores, all located in Southern California.

The five Las Vegas metro region Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets to open on November 14 are located in the following neighborhoods (street and cross street):

>Tropicana & Durango

>Tropicana & Jones

>Lake Mead & Del Webb

>Bermuda & Silverado Ranch

>Warm Springs & Eastern

These five stores will be the first to open in Nevada. The first six Fresh & Easy stores to open will do so on November 8 in the Southern California cities of Los Angeles, Anaheim, Arcadia, Hemet, West Covina and Upland.

Tesco also has announced new Fresh & Easy stores will open in San Diego, California and the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area by the end of this year.

The opening of five stores all on the same day (November 14) will give Tesco an immediate presence in Las Vegas. Opening five stores at one time rather than just one creates the beginning of a retail store critical mass which is Tesco's goal for the regions--Southern California, Northern California, Nevada and Arizona--the retailer is targeting initially. One Tesco executive referred to it as a "Starbucks like" retail strategy some months ago. By this he means the critical mass strategy Starbucks has employed, resulting in the fact that today in most major U.S. metropolitan regions you find Starbucks stores within just a few miles of each other.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores average 10,000 to 13,000 square-feet in size. They feature fresh, prepared foods (including grab-and-go selections) as their centerpiece. The stores merchandise a selection of basic groceries, specialty and natural foods and products, fresh produce, meats and other perishables. Fresh & Easy is positioned as a "neighborhood" grocery store where consumers can get what they need in a store more convenient than a traditional U.S. Supermarket but much more extensive in product selection and quality than a traditional convenience store.

Tesco says it currently has about 100-120 Fresh & Easy stores either being built or in the development pipeline for California, Nevada and Arizona. More stores are to follow that initial surge, as well as expansion to other states in the U.S.

Tesco has constructed a huge 800,000 square-foot distribution center in Riverside County in Southern California. Distribution of grocery, perishable and non-foods items will be distributed from this facility to all of the Fresh & Easy stores in the Western U.S.

The distribution center has a full-service kitchen facility, where the upscale, prepared foods will be made for all of the retailer's Fresh & Easy stores. Tesco has constructed one of the largest solar power roof array systems on top of the center's buildings. The renewable solar power generated from the system is estimated to be able to provide about 30% of the electricity used to power the facility.