magical moments at fresh & easy

Time's a funny thing. It seems a lifetime ago we were showing customers around our mock store, seeing if we'd understood what they'd told us correctly. Now, November seems to be hurtling towards us, when we'll be opening our first fresh&easy stores.

It's an amazingly exciting time. Many different strands of the business we're building are now coming together, and we're finding out whether they're a perfect fit. Needless to say, as with any building project, we're having to make some adjustments.

It may only be a food store, but memorable moments just keep coming. So far this month for example, we've seen our first outdoor sign lit up (LED of course), our first store being handed over to our store personnel to get ready for launch, or our first product being delivered to our depot.

But whilst these are major milestones in the setting up of the business, the real magical moments come from the people. The email from a construction guy exuding excitement about the LED sign that's just been installed, a buyer proudly demonstrating how their product has no artificial ingredients but still tastes great, a transport guy excitedly showing us round the energy-efficient & neighborhood friendly trailer he'd commissioned, a recent trainee extolling the virtues of our simple cash office process. You can just feel that we're on to something.

Retail businesses are about people. When people believe in what they do and enjoy what they do, they can do great things. Our challenge is to hold onto this as we recruit our customer assistants. If we do, fresh&easy will be something special. Whether we do, our employees and our customers will decide. And that, as ever, is how it should be.....