a very magic monday at fresh & easy

On setting out to build fresh&easy, we were very clear that we had to create a great place to work. After all, who wants to shop in a store where the staff clearly don't enjoy working?

So we decided from the start that every person we recruited would experience a "magic monday", within 4 weeks of joining the business. Tim (our chief executive), Hugh (who looks after hr), and my good self pledged to dedicate at least one monday morning every month explaining to our new employees what fresh&easy neighborhood market is all about, showing them around our mock store (which incidentally is still housed within a non-descript warehouse somewhere in LA).

Initially, there were just a handful of new recruits each time. This morning however, 12 "magic mondays" later, there were 75 - our first group of store and depot recruits have come on board.

In January 2006, 6 of us were sitting in our non-descript warehouse, trying to figure out how to build a business capable of delivering what customers had told us they wanted: fresh&easy neighborhood market.

This morning, 18 months later, it felt like the cavalry had arrived..... A very magic monday indeed!

recruiting trial at fresh & easy

It's going to be another memorable week this week, as we start interviewing potential store employees as part of a recruitment trial.

In our business, we can only be successful if we create a workplace that people enjoy, so we have spent much time and effort talking to people about what would make a great place to work for them, as we have done with customers about what would be their ideal shopping trip.

Indeed, the two are inextricably linked. Customers told us that the stores that offer friendly service do so because the employees enjoy working there.

We found that the most important thing about a great workplace was being treated with respect. So we set out to create a positive, team-based culture, to achieve this...and so far, we have been remarkably successful: our staff satisfaction survey results are the highest the research company that does it for us have ever seen.

But it's one thing creating that among 150 people in an office. The real challenge is to maintain that culture as we start recruiting hundreds of people to run our stores in southern California, Phoenix and Las Vegas.

So the recruitment trial will be a big test of whether we've got our rewards and benefits package right, consistent with creating a great shopping trip and a great place to work.

Since there's been so much speculation about what our package will be like, we announced details at our launch in Los Angeles last thursday (you'll find the press release on our website if you're interested). One thing I'm particularly proud of is that we're planning for every job in our stores to be over 20 hours, and we'll be offering affordable healthcare for every job over 20 hours, with only a 90 day qualifying period. Needless to say, our lowest pay rate is well above the minimum wage.

We'll discover from the trial whether the package will enable us to recruit the people we need. And indeed, in the end it'll be our employees who'll judge whether or not we manage to maintain that positive, team-based culture once we open lots of stores.

That's why I love retailing. It's so democratic: our customers and our employees will decide whether or not we've been successful in creating a great shopping trip and a great place to work.... and that's how it should be.

clogging at fresh & easy

Not a favorite pastime of mine (although our finance man at fresh&easy is dutch), but in response to a comment from The Castaway, I'm afraid this blog is written by me, and me alone...and I'm pretty sure our agency would pay not to hire me as a copywriter!

It is of course about fresh&easy rather than my life, but I hope I'm giving you some flavor of what we think and how we approach things. And I am genuinely excited about what we're doing - making fresh, wholesome food affordable and accessible for everyone; in a more environmentally friendly way; and creating a workplace culture that people genuinely enjoy - why wouldn't I be?

Anyway, back to clogging....

what's in a (fresh&easy) store

Retail brands are about stores.

What people will think about fresh&easy will not be driven by fancy advertising or hollow promises, but by their experience of shopping in their local store.

So I was delighted last week to visit a number of our sites under construction, including this one in Las Vegas.

Ok, it's a converted space rather than our prototype store, which means we can only build in some of the energy saving initiatives. But we're making sure it'll still be a fresh&easy shop, as well as a good neighbor and a great place to work.

And that's how we're setting about building fresh&easy as a brand...store by store.

strawberry jamming at fresh& easy

Today at fresh&easy was one of those great days that will stay with me for a long, long time. We saw our very first fresh&easy product, packed and ready to eat.

Why a picture of strawberries?

It was a strawberry jam.

Not just any strawberry jam, but one made using only fresh strawberries from California, and we'll be offering it at a great price.

Apologies for being a little excited, but great food you can trust at prices everyone can afford just became a giant step closer to reality.

I might even get to like strawberry jam myself...

fresh&easy in underserved neighborhoods

We've had a lot of media interest recently about our plans to open stores in South Central LA. It's all been very positive. Indeed, we've been made to feel very welcome there, for which we're very grateful.

However, I've been asked a number of times why we think we can be successful where other food retailers appear to have struggled.

Of course, we haven't opened yet... But at one level, the answer's simple: in our experience, if you offer high quality food at prices everyone can afford in a decent environment, people will shop with you.

Of course, we still have to sell the products that people want. So we've gone to great lengths to try and get this right.

I've talked before about how we went into people's homes, talked to them about food and food shopping, poked around their pantries and refrigerators, and went shopping with them. And how, from this, we developed fresh&easy neighborhood market.

However, as an example, we were still concerned that we didn't quite understand in detail the needs of Hispanic households. So again, we went back into their homes, to try to understand the regular products they wanted.

Out of this, we found that fresh&easy would be attractive in their neighborhood, provided we stock the right mix of national brands and authentic products, alongside the freshness and great prices we had already planned. It led us to add another 250 or so products to our proposed assortment, to achieve this.

Whether we've got it right, we shall of course see... But we're trying to make everyone welcome at fresh&easy, and that includes serving neighborhoods that have previously been neglected.

tuna is tuna at fresh& easy

As somebody pointed out, what we heard about the difficulties of making choices with so many similar products on the shelves echoes the theme of Barry Schwartz's book The Paradox of Choice. It's a fascinating read, and certainly strikes a chord. Check it out...