Fresh & Easy Opening Countdown

Opening On November 8: Two More Fresh & Easy Southern California Store Locations Discovered

Yesterday we reported that one of the six Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets set to open on November 8 would be in the Orange County city of Anaheim. See story here. Today we've learned of two more (out of the six) specific Fresh & Easy store locations in Southern California.

Tesco will open Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets in the Southern California cities of West Covina and Arcadia on November 8, along with the Anaheim location. The West Covina store will be at the corner of West Covina Parkway and South California Avenue and the Arcadia Fresh & Easy market will be at Foothill Boulevard and Second Avenue.

We've also confirmed some details about the two new stores with Tesco. Each store will employee about 30 workers hired from local communities. All the store employees, except for full-time managers, we be employed part to full time, working 20 hours or more per week. Tesco said all employees will be eligible for health care insurance and other benefits. Entry-level salaries will begin at $10.00 hour and each employee is eligible for a potential quarterly bonus of up to 10% of their pay, according to Tesco.

With three of the six stores set to open on November 8 discovered, Natural~Specialty Foods (NSFM) only has three more to locate for our readers. The six stores are in Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Riverside counties in Southern California. The Anaheim store is in Orange County and the West Covina and Arcadia units are in Los Angeles County.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores are about 10,000 square-feet and feature upscale, fresh prepared foods (including grab-and-go-items), basic groceries, specialty and natural foods and other offerings. The focus in on fresh and specialty-oriented foods in a smaller, faster format than the traditional U.S. supermarket. Tesco has built a full-kitchen facility at its new distribution center in Riverside County in Southern California and will deliver fresh foods daily to its stores.

Tesco says it currently has 100 Fresh & Easy stores either being built or in the pipeline. In addition to Southern California, stores will open in Arizona and Nevada later in November, and beyond. Tesco also recently announced it will enter Northern California, in addition to Southern California, Arizona and Nevada, beginning sometime in 2008.

NSFM Breaking News

Tesco Announces First Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Store Openings

Pictured above: Construction workers test the sign lights at this completed Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store in Los Angeles County on September 22, 2007. The store will be one of the first six to open on November 8, 2007.

A drum roll please. British-based retailer Tesco has just announced the grand opening date for the first of its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores. Six of the stores will open on Thursday, November 8, 2007, all in Southern California. The stores opening on November 8 are in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Following the November 8 opening of these six stores Tesco says it will open additional stores in San Diego, Phoenix, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada by the end of the year (2007).

Natural~Specialty Foods Memo's Retail Whispers column predicted a few weeks ago the first Fresh & Easy stores to open would be in Southern California when one of our Retail Whispers' Southern California sources spotted construction workers cleaning up and testing the store sign lights at what they said was a completed store in Los Angeles County. This store will be one of the first six to open on Thursday, November 8. You can read the September 22, 2007 Retail Whispers item here.

You can read the full press release announcement from Tesco here.