for those about to rock.....at fresh & easy

Amazing days.

At the end of September, we had 300 employees. Today, we've just passed 1,000.

It's been the privilege of myself and my colleagues over the last few days to meet some of the teams who will be running our first stores, which open in 8 days time.

If there's one thing I've learnt about retailing over the years, it's that you need happy staff to have happy customers. It's why we put so much effort into creating a positive workplace, where everyone is treated with respect.

Over the last 30 months, we've listened to people - as customers, as neighbors and as employees - and from what we've heard, developed fresh&easy neighborhood market.

But although we think we've got the ingredients in place, it'll be the teams in the stores that really bring fresh&easy to life.

We couldn't have been more impressed by the people we've met. Friendly, excited, enthusiastic...I could go on.

We're close to throwing open the doors of the first stores... and letting our customers decide.

For all the people that have joined us on this adventure, we're about to rock... and we salute you.

meeting old friends at fresh & easy

Time's a funny thing.

With the pressure to get our first stores open, it's been hurtling towards us. But events of the last few months seem like a lifetime ago.

So it was last Friday, when I went round some of our first stores, which are due to open on November 8th. As I wandered around them, I came across a number of our private label products already sitting on the shelves. It was like being re-acquainted with old friends.

Why? Because every fresh&easy product on our shelves has been a labor of love, over the last 18 months.

We don't just buy products off the shelf.

First, we try and find out what customers want.

We then go and find suppliers who have a passion for food and the operating standards that we require. We work with them to develop products that both taste good, and are free of artificial colors and flavors, have no added transfats, nor (unless it's absolutely essential) preservatives.

We agonise over the packaging design, to ensure that the product rather than the packaging speaks for itself. We check it looks right on a shelf.

And we put every product through a taste panel, to ensure it tastes better than an equivalent product in the market.

It takes time.

So finally seeing them again, coming together on the shelves, was literally like a reunion.

However, the real reward comes when we open our doors, and find out what our customers think of them.

And that, of course, is how it should be.....

fresh&easy at Aids Walk Los Angeles

We took a break to take part in this event again this year.

What a cool event, and what a difference a year makes.

Last year nobody knew who we were. There were about 30 of us, in green t-shirts with our clock apple logo. The best cheer we got was "come on you limey clocks".

This year, there were about 80 of us, including my 2 kids, and people just talked to us all the way round.

It was great fun, very friendly, and great to see so many of our people happily giving up their sunday.

I can see us taking part for many years to come...

thrills, rumors and fresh & easy

19 days to our first store opening, you can feel the excitement amongst our people. After 30 months of development, it's an amazing time.

We were thrilled with the response we've had to recruiting around our first 6 stores. We filled all our positions, and it's enabled us to demonstrate that we deliver on our promises. Over 50% of our recruits come from the local neighborhoods, and everybody is working at least 20 hours and are eligible for full-time benefits (check it out).

Of course, not everything is going quite to plan. Doug, our IT man, and Mark, who heads up our supply chain, have a few (more) grey hairs, and everyone is extraordinarily busy.

But special moments just keep coming. For example, we ran our first life skills course for all our employees in one of our first stores this week, and the feedback was just remarkable, really quite moving. Real encouragement that a positive workplace is developing.

However, there does seem to be a number of rumors circulating, judging from emails we're getting in.

I'm happy to confirm that all our meat and poultry will be from the USA. Indeed, we try to source locally whenever we can. Over 60% of our produce, for example, will be from California, and another 10% from Arizona. After all, this is one of the great market gardens of the world. Why wouldn't we?

We will be accepting credit cards and food stamps, and there will be assistance at our checkouts.

And, we will only be playing music from Depeche Mode, Radiohead and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.....(that one's a joke!)

You've also given us quite a bit of feedback about the maps on our website being less than helpful. We will update them to be much more helpful, in time for the launch.

It's a thrilling time for us, but in the end that doesn't really matter. In 19 days our doors will open, and then everyone can vote with their feet....It's how it should be, and after 30 months, believe me, we can't wait....

fresh & easy, what are you?

One of my favorite bands is Depeche Mode (in my view, the film of their Devotional tour by Anton Corbijn is a seminal work). I remember them being introduced on a UK show a few years ago - "there's rock music, there's R&B, there's rap, there's electronica, and there's the music of Depeche Mode".

Reading a lot of commentaries on us over the last few weeks, we seem to be described as a lot of different things - a gourmet store, a hispanic store, an eco store, an upscale convenience store, a small supermarket, a large convenience store, amongst others

In fact, we're best described as fresh&easy neighborhood market.

We can't be put into any particular category for the very reason we decided to set this business up here - people told us that none of the existing types of stores exactly fitted what they wanted from their ideal shopping trip.

When we showed people around our mock store (the one inside that non-descript warehouse), they tended to describe it by what it's not, or by what it's got bits of.

So we asked people what we should refer to it as, and that's where fresh&easy neighborhood market came from.

Of course, the commentaries are picking up elements - we will be selling fresh, wholesome speciality market food, but at affordable prices; we want everyone to feel welcome at our stores, irrespective of ethnicity or level of income; we've tried to be thoughtful about the impact we have on the environment; and we aim to make all this conveniently available in the neighborhood, with a store that is easy to get round.

But for the moment, just like Depeche Mode, we're in a category of our own.

Whether it's the right category, as ever, will be up to our customers to decide.....and that's how it should be...

a double take at fresh & easy

A remarkable thing happened last week.

In March 2006, we hired our first fresh&easy employee. Over the next 18 months, we increased the number of people to over 300.

Last week, in a single week, we more than doubled the size of the company, bringing the total to over 600 people, as we recruited from the neighborhoods around our first stores.

It was quite fitting that the news came through as I was attending the graduation dinner on friday night for our first 22 store managers, who will be responsible for running these stores.

They'd graduated from our 5 week course, which teaches them not just how to run one of our stores, but more importantly how to lead people - after all, everybody deserves a manager who's been trained to help them.

They'd come from a variety of retail and services backgrounds, but it was inspiring to see how they'd become a positive and coherent group, embodying the values of fresh&easy that are at the heart of what we're trying to do.

Of course, we haven't opened a store yet, but I was filled with confidence that the 300+ people we recruited last week will be lead in the fresh&easy way.

Whether that way is right, our customers and employees will decide, once we open in November.

And that, as ever, is how it should be.....