EL SEGUNDO, Calif.-- Tesco PLC is about to test a new convenience store concept in southern California as the U.K. grocery retail giant seeks to stem losses at its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market chain, reported The Financial Times. Tesco will pilot a handful of stores under the "Fresh & Easy Express" name by the end of the year.
The stores are expected to be about 3,000 square feet each, said the report, approximately the size of a typical convenience store in the U.K. Fresh & Easy Buzz, an unaffiliated blog that tracks the company, said that the [image-nocss] new stores will be in the 4,000 to 5,000-square-foot range.
The move will enable Fresh & Easy to venture into neighborhoods that would not be able to accommodate its standard 10,000-sq.-ft. stores, particularly urban areas where sites can be difficult to find.
Tesco has some stores as small as 7,000 square feet in San Francisco, the report said, but the Express stores would mark a further departure for the chain.
"We are always looking to serve more neighborhoods and in order to open stores in more communities we are going to be trialing a handful of smaller stores called Fresh & Easy Express," the company told the newspaper.
Fresh & Easy Buzz added that the new concept is expected to borrow from the Tesco Express stores in the U.K. and Europe.
Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Inc. has signed a lease for a corner site in San Pedro, Calif., for a Fresh & Easy Express store, according to The Daily Breeze." A hearing for the store's beer and wine license is set for September 21. Operators hope to open the store before Thanksgiving, but if that is not possible, it will open after January 1, 2012, said the report.
The Fresh & Easy Express trial is the latest move by Tesco as it seeks to steer Fresh & Easy to break even by the end of the 2012-2013 financial year, the Financial Times added.
This autumn it is expected to experiment with a version of its successful Clubcard loyalty scheme in the United States, with the Friends of Fresh & Easy card. It is also revamping stores, making them more like typical U.S. supermarkets, and introducing bakeries and fresh coffee to go.
The El Segundo, Calif.-based company currently has 176 Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets, 127 in California, 21 in the Las Vegas market and 28 in the Phoenix market.
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