keeping things simple at fresh& easy

We went down to San Diego this week to announce our first 7 stores there, and received a great welcome - we were covered by both local tv news and newspapers. But in chatting with journalists, a question came up which I thought you'd be interested in: how can you manage to sell fresh, high quality food at the same time as offering low prices that everyone can afford?

The answer? At fresh&easy, we have a passion for keeping things simple.

For example, why fill a shelf one product at a time if you can figure out a way to fill it twelve products at a time? It makes no difference to customers, it takes the same amount of effort, but it's twelve times faster. Good for reducing costs, which can then be reinvested in lower prices.

Or why use so much energy lighting a store when you can use natural light? You just need windows, and a way of turning down your lights during daylight hours - good for the environment, and good for reducing costs, which again can be re-invested in lower prices.

Perhaps the single biggest example is the way in which we're approaching our assortment of products. We will only have about a tenth of the range of a full size supermarket, which means that the sales of each individual product will be much higher. This in turn reduces costs across the supply chain, which once more can be reinvested in lower prices.

However, we haven't taken this approach just to reduce costs. In talking with people about their ideal shopping trip, a theme kept coming up: it's so difficult to find what you want when there's so many similar products on the shelves. As one person memorably put it - why do I have to choose between 15 different cans of tuna, after all, tuna is tuna!

So we've tried to be very thoughtful in selecting an assortment of products which will still let you to get all your regular shopping needs, but make it quick and easy for you to find what you want - and thanks to keeping it simple, with both high quality and low prices.

Have we got it right? Well, as ever it will be our customers who decide once we open later this year, and that's how it should be...

the fresh&easy store

This is what our prototype store design looks like:
We've tried to come up with a distinctive and attractive building which would be a welcome addition to any neighborhood, create the right environment for a fresh&easy shopping trip, but also be much more energy-efficient than a standard store. Hopefully, we've managed to achieve all three.

We wanted it to be distinctive so that people notice it, and attractive so that you're happy to see it in your neighborhood. Of course at times we'll have to modify the design so that it fits in with local planning rules, and where we're converting an existing building we can only add some of the elements, but so far we've had very favorable reaction from the planning community.

To enable a fresh&easy shopping trip, it's relatively small - more the size of a Trader Joe's or a Walgreens than a supermarket -, and of a shape that makes for a straightforward layout. It also uses a lot of natural light, to help create a comfortable and calm environment, as well as cut down on energy.

Indeed, with all the features we've built into it, we reckon we've reduced it's energy usage by c30%. As well as natural light, for example, our exterior signage and freezer cabinets use LED lighting, we've modified our chilled cabinets, and invested in a sophisticated energy control system.

Combined with our focus on making fresh, high quality food affordable and accessible for everyone, the color of the building pretty much chose itself...

a great place to work

Underpinning fresh&easy is a very simple belief: it's not advertising or fancy marketing that will make the business successful. It's the experience you have of your neighborhood fresh&easy store - is it good enough for you to want to come back again and again.

Of course, the way we design and lay out each store can make sure that it looks like a fresh&easy store. But in large measure, your experience depends on the team in your neighborhood store.

I suppose you could try and control each experience by sending out pages and pages of detailed instructions to each store team, and scripts to be followed when talking to customers. But that's not our way.

In our view (at the risk of being trite), it's much simpler: happy staff = happy customers.

So we're spending a lot of time and effort just being clear about what we stand for and what we're trying to achieve (have a look at the "who we are" section of our website), so that our teams have a compass. And we're setting out to create a positive working environment, using a team-based approach with growth opportunities, flexibility, rewards, and an emphasis on treating each other with respect.

We simply have to be a great place to work. It's not a choice, it's the key to our success...