talking fresh&easy blog

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Eat well at Fresh & Easy with our new meals

Our customers told us they love our prepared meals, but wished we offered some with less calories, sodium and fat. We’re happy to report that we have been hard at work creating nutritionally balanced meals - called "eatwell" - and you can now find them in our stores! Eatwell gives you more nutritious options without having to compromise on quality or flavor.

The eatwell products you can now find on our shelves include ready-made meals, soups, salads sandwiches and sushi. We've displayed some of the nutritional information on the front of the package, and each product in the line has no more than 25 percent of the total daily values for calories, fat, saturated fat and sodium. And of course, since they’re fresh&easy brand, they’re only made with ingredients you can pronounce. Make sure to keep an eye out, since soon we’ll be introducing even more eatwell items!

new eatwell

Before launching these new products in stores, we asked local bloggers to join us at our home office to find out what they thought of them. A big thank you to all our blogger friends who came out for the tasting!

All the bloggers at the fresh&easy Eat Well sneak peak event!

We could go on and on about how excited we are about these products, but it’s probably more interesting to see what our customers think:

SueBob's Snackish Blog
Bern Baby Bern
Random Walk Down Mommy Street
Rockin Mama
Funny Yellow Mom
Newly Wife
Temple of Fresh & Easy
N Her Shoes
Greenery in Mommyhood
Dine 909
The Frugal Diva
Traded my BMW for a Minivan
NEW! Sweatpants Mama

We are thrilled the eatwell products have received such a positive response so far and we’re eager to find out what you think too! Leave us a comment and let us know if you enjoyed eating well :)

Cheers,
Sallie

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Monday, March 15, 2010

Your receipts made a big difference!

We are happy to announce that this school year’s Shop for Schools program raised over $670,000 for schools in Arizona, California and Nevada. The school that raised the most money in each state was awarded a $5,000 bonus and we had fun presenting them with checks at their school celebrations today.

Congratulations to the below winning schools!















Our Lady of Sorrows Academy, Phoenix AZ raised over $7,000

Arizona schools together raised over $90,000















Sunset View Elementary, Point Loma CA raised over $10,000

California schools together raised over $450,000
















Bunker Elementary, Las Vegas NV raised over $10,000

Nevada schools together raised over $130,000

Nearly 1,000 local schools participated and for every $20 in fresh&easy receipts they collected from September 15th – December 31st, we made a $1 donation for them to use as they see fit.

Participating schools also had the option of having their own Shopping Night, and we’re excited to share this video to show you what they’re all about.



Congratulations to all the participating schools on their fundraising efforts and we look forward to partnering with you again next Fall!

For more info visit freshandeasy.com/shopforschools.

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Monday, March 8, 2010

the culinary art of coffee

It takes a lot of people and passion to put great products on our shelves. Part of Fresh & Easy’s commitment to you is that we put the best products on our shelves that we know are created with care. Behind each Fresh & Easy product is a story and group of passionate people who strive to make the highest quality, fresh products possible – and keep them all at a reasonable price.

So when we met the owners of Caffe Calabria, a local café and artisanal coffee roaster in San Diego, we knew we had to partner with them to produce some of the most amazing, rich and delicious coffee for our shelves – the fresh&easy artisanal coffee. The company’s passion for the culinary art of coffee-making is apparent in the incredible care they put into each step of the coffee roasting process – from raw bean to finished product, each batch goes through rigorous testing and tastings to make sure it is perfect.

We took a camera down to Caffe Calabria to capture the care and passion the roasters of Caffe Calabria put into every single batch of fresh&easy artisanal coffee.



The coffee is carefully packaged in tins, preserving the freshness and aroma so when you open the canister in your home the result is a perfect cup of fresh, handcrafted coffee made with care. I don’t know about you, but I can practically smell the coffee through the screen…

For another “story behind the product” – check out our trip to the Il Fornaio bakery to see the bakers of fresh&easy breads!

Cheers!
~SallieB

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

fresh&easy is now on facebook!

Status update: We just launched our official fresh&easy Facebook fan page!

Though it’s still early, we’ll be adding more features and content based on your input on the fan page. If you’d like another way to stay connected, fan us at www.facebook.com/freshandeasy. And be sure to tell us what you think!

We’re also on
•Twitter @fresh_and_easy
Youtube
Flickr

Cheers!
Gary

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Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Twitter Tasting with @Fresh_and_Easy

We’d like to invite all wine enthusiasts, who are 21 years of age or older, to participate in our upcoming Twitter Tasting! We thought it’d be fun to kick off the Valentine’s Day celebrations by giving you a taste of our fresh&easy wines.

On Tuesday, February 9th at 7pm (PST), we’ll taste three exclusive fresh&easy wines that are perfect for whether you’re celebrating Valentine’s Day with that special someone or with friends. Karen Fletcher, our Fresh & Easy Wine Manager, will be your host and can give you the inside scoop on the uniqueness of our wines. She’s excited to get your feedback and happy to answer your questions.

To join:
1. Sign up at Taste Live using Twitter, Facebook or creating a new account on the top right corner
2. Let us know you’ll be joining us by RSVPing here
3. Pick up a bottle at your local Fresh & Easy store
4. Log in to Taste Live and tweet with us on February 9th at 7:00PM (PT)– Hashtag: #FandEWine

We will be tasting the following Fresh & Easy exclusive wines:


Montcadi Cava Rose – under $6


Boro Hills Sauvignon Blanc – under $11


Matuco Malbec 2007 - under $10

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Tuesday, January 5, 2010

fresh&easy is the solution to your resolution!

It’s easy to achieve your New Year’s resolutions to eat more healthy foods and save more money. Our fresh&easy brand products have no artificial colors, flavors or added trans fats; and because we’ve designed our stores to save you money, you get these high-quality products at honest low prices everyday!

So, how do we do it? It’s all about keeping things simple. Check out our video to learn more and let us know what you think!



Happy New Year!
Gary

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Monday, December 28, 2009

Turning old cards into new trees at fresh&easy

In the spirit of holiday giving, we’re asking our customers to help us give back to the environment. All of our stores will be collecting your used greeting cards through January 15th and recycling them.

All the proceeds will be donated to American Forests, a nonprofit organization we’ve partnered with that will use the money to plant trees in neighborhoods that need them, including those that have been affected by wildfires.

So remember to save those cards and bring them to your local fresh&easy to help turn them into new trees for a greener new year!

Happy Holidays!
-Gary

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Friday, December 18, 2009

Celebrating the Holidays Latino Style

We joined bloggers and journalists for a holiday fiesta at Sur La Table in Los Angeles last week. We indulged in Latin-inspired dishes created by our Chef Cynthia Perez and delectable desserts, all paired with our exclusive wines to toast the upcoming holidays and new year.



Everyone helped Chef Cynthia cook and eat the great tasting food including Maple Ham & Brie Crostini, Sweet Corn Tamales with Roasted Garlic & Rosemary, Homemade Roasted Poblano Guacamole with Grilled Shrimp, and Mini Black Bean & Goat Cheese Quesadillas.

IMG_0741a
(For full recipes click here)

Chef Cynthia also shared simple tips on how to take the stress out of the kitchen and turning staple Latin items, like chorizo, into unique concepts – Mini Chorizo Salad, yum!

Chorizo Salad

Getting to know our neighbors was the best part of the night. We’re grateful for our new friends and had a great time celebrating this holiday season with them!


A special thanks to our friends who joined us:

Soy Fashionista
Thought of a Mommy
8 Years old and Babies
Day Tripping Mom
Spanglish Baby
My Fat Big Cuban Family
Rockin Mama
Greenery in Mommyhood
Nuestra Vida Con Adrian

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Wednesday, November 25, 2009

We’re thankful for good friends and good food

In an early celebration of the season of connecting with friends and family, last week the Fresh & Easy team traveled to Phoenix and Las Vegas to reconnect with some of our blogging friends, make some new ones and of course enjoy some great fresh&easy holiday food.



With Chef Cindy’s expert guidance, we all pitched in to help prepare a complete Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings, including some different takes on the classics – such as an easy, healthy and very tasty sweet-potato-spinach-salad.



(For the full recipe check out Noshtopia’s post)

Chef Cindy also wowed us with her simple tips to make fresh&easy readymade meals unique, such as the mashed potatoes, by adding your own spin to them. She incorporated garlic and parmesan cheese into her recipe and someone mentioned even adding bacon or chives to the potatoes. Not only is it simple and time saving, but because our fresh&easy prepared meals only use ingredients you can pronounce, the potatoes tasted just like homemade.



The no fuss fresh&easy dip trays and vegetable platters make a delicious and simple starter that will keep your dinner guests at bay and out of the kitchen until the turkey is done. And you won’t have to deal with prep or cleanup. As for the desserts and wines, well all I can say is they were a hit!



We had a great time with all of our lovely friends in Phoenix and Las Vegas. By the end there were full stomachs, empty glasses and lots of laughter.


For more pics of the event check out our Flickr page.

Very special thanks to our friends who joined us :
Loosing It in AZ
Noshtopia
Mom Memos
The Crepes of Wrath
Vivian Nelson Melle
Tim Swearingen
The Traveling Rose
Megan
Concoctions of a Wanna be Chef
Fresh & Easy Wine Review Blog
Chef Mona
Steve, Sam, Steve and Andy from UKLV.org
Carlo and Alex from Recession Recipes
Sparkle Power
The Deal Fanatic
Coupon Chic

From our team, to you – we wish you a happy Thanksgiving full of great food and great friends!

Cheers!
~SallieB

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Thursday, November 19, 2009

Fresno bound at fresh&easy

Last week, we held an event at our Downtown Fresno store to announce the opening dates for our first few stores in the Fresno area.

-- Lemoore & Cinnamon, Lemoore: December 2nd
-- Tulare & R, Fresno: January 13th
-- Cedar & Nees, Fresno: January 13th
-- Shaw & Willow, Clovis: January 13th

The outpouring of support from the community and city government in Fresno was a great indication of what lies ahead for Fresh & Easy. A big thank you to Fresno City Council President Cynthia Sterling, City Council Member Lee Brand and Redevelopment Agency Exec Director Marlene Murphey who were on hand to speak.



With these six stores we are proud to be creating 125 more good paying, quality jobs with comprehensive benefits. If you are interested in joining our team, job listings and the application process are posted here.



For more on the Fresno story check out what Fresno bloggers like The Fresnan, Fresno Fusion and the Fresno Bee News Blog have to say about it.

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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Gift cards worth giving

You told us you wanted gift cards and we listened!

Fresh&Easy gift cards are now available in $25 or $50 denominations just in time for the gift-giving season. Now giving the gift of wholesome products to your friends and family is even easier.

These convenient gift cards are the perfect gift - we wouldn't blame you for putting them on your own wish list!

You can find the fresh&easy gift cards at the front of our stores.

Cheers!
~SallieB

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Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Retreat at fresh&easy

You may have noticed a lot of changes around our shops this summer. That’s because we’ve been adding over 1,000 new products based on your feedback including larger family sizes, budget-friendly choices that are national brand quality, more top name brands and even more fresh&easy branded products!
Most recently, we’ve added more choices to our health & beauty aisle including our own brand of beauty products called Retreat. We developed our Retreat line using the same high-quality standards that all fresh&easy products are known for i.e. no artificial ingredients & minimal preservatives… So, our Retreat products have no artificial colors, parabens, mineral oils or harsh SLS detergents. And most of these new items are priced under $5!

More high-quality choices offered at affordable prices based on customer feedback! Now that’s fresh&easy…

Have you tried our Retreat products yet? If so, leave a comment and tell us what you think!!!

Cheers,
Gary

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Monday, August 24, 2009

Back-to-School at fresh&easy

It’s that time of year again – the back-to-school rush is here. While parents are busy filling backpacks with supplies, they are also packing those lunchboxes with meals and snacks that will take their kids through the day. It is a challenge that all parents face to pack lunches they feel good about but will also be eaten and not “traded” away to friends and classmates. But who says it has to be complicated?

We just launched our new line of fresh&easy Goodness Snack Trays. They contain nitrate-free ham or turkey, real cheddar cheese (not processed) and organic wheat crackers for just $2.49 a pack. They taste great and they’re made with ingredients you can trust…



What are your tried and true tips on making fun and healthy lunches and snacks for your family (and for yourself)?

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Thursday, August 13, 2009

Shop for Schools is back at fresh&easy

Earlier this year we piloted a program called Shop for Schools and helped raise money for K-8th grade schools in the neighborhoods around our stores. Afterwards, we were delighted to hear from parents, students, teachers and administrators that our donations helped them purchase much-needed supplies, books, instruments and sometimes helped pay teacher salaries.

Each day we hear about the pressure schools are under when it comes to budgets; and we really want to help out. So after talking and listening to participants and customers from our pilot program, we’ve made some improvements and decided to bring it back!

This time, we’ve extended the fundraising period and added enhanced fundraising opportunities. For example, participating schools will receive a $1 cash donation for every $20 spent at our stores beginning September 15th through December 31st and on a designated evening schools can receive 5% of a store’s sales.

Check out a video on Shop for Schools from earlier this year:



We recently sent registration forms to eligible schools in the neighborhoods around our stores, so be sure to chat with your school’s administrator if you’d like to register. Registration ends October 1st!

We're interested to hear your thoughts... Did your school participate earlier this year? What did you think?

Cheers,
Gary

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Wednesday, July 15, 2009

more fresh&easy stores opening!

Today we celebrated with our new neighbors in Pasadena the grand opening of our 121st store at California & Lake.

Here are some photos and a video from today's event!





You can see more pictures of the opening event today on our flickr page.

Be sure to keep an eye out, because we have three other stores opening this month!
Two in Santa Barbara County and a store in Oxnard all open July 29th and our Delano store will be opening its doors on August 19th. For details on these openings, be sure to check out our What's New section of our website.

Pasadena, thank you so much for the warm welcome. We are delighted to join the neighborhood!

~Cheers,
Sallie

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Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Designer Angel at fresh&easy

We have fantastic & passionate people working hard around our shops to give customers the best shopping trip possible. As a new business, we put a lot of thought into creating a fun and rewarding workplace; after all creating a great place to work is key to ensuring our customers have great service. So we encourage all our team members to voice new ideas and bring their creativity & personality to work.

Meet Angel, a team member at our Las Vegas & Lake Mead store in Nevada.


Angel is a talented artist who designed and airbrushed fresh&easy t-shirts and hats for her fellow team members. To show her green fresh&easy pride at one of our recent City Meetings, Angel designed a fabulous hat which caught the eye of Tim, our CEO. Tim loved Angel’s design so much, that he produced one for everyone in our company!

Each of our team members brings something different and special to our shops and we love to celebrate the creativity, innovation & passion of our team members. Congrats Angel! And thanks for the sweet hat!!!

Cheers,
Gary

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Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Award winning wine at Fresh & Easy

Last month, our Fresh & Easy exclusive wines won 29 awards from the Los Angeles International Wine & Spirits Competition and the San Francisco International Wine Competition. We have now won over 80 awards for our exclusive wines, which are blended with the help of Master of Wine Phil Reedman. (there are less than 300 Masters of Wine in the world)

Nearly 60 of the 170 wines offered at our stores are exclusive to Fresh & Easy – and most of our wine sells for less than $10 a bottle. We’ve worked hard to simplify the wine selection process for our customers by arranging them by varietal instead of region and by putting tasting notes, food pairing suggestions and storage tips on the back label of our exclusive wine bottles. We don’t think wine should be complicated for customers and we believe great wine doesn’t have to be expensive to be…well, great.

Even more good news for wine lovers: we are introducing 25 new wines this summer!

To show off some of our wines and meet a few neighbors, we had a party at the very hip Roosevelt Hotel in – right across the street from our Hollywood & Sycamore store. Chef Mike prepared the food and Karen, our wine and beer manager, picked the wines. It just shows you, you don’t have to spend a lot of money on food and wine to throw a great party!

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Wednesday, July 1, 2009

A Grill-Packed Day at fresh&easy

We’ve recently partnered with an award-winning grilling master Neil Strawder, also known as Big Mista, to give our customers helpful grilling tips. Last week he stopped by our home office and treated our team to a delicious BBQ! He fired up his grill and cooked up all our fresh&easy favorites including our Grill Pack - Nearly 5 lbs of high-quality beef patties, pork and chicken – It was a great day and we certainly ate a lot!

Here’s a picture of Big Mista (right) with the man behind our meat range, Bill Arnold (left).


Happy 4th of July!

Cheers!
Gary

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Monday, June 22, 2009

Big Pizza at Fresh & Easy


As Simon mentioned in a recent blog post, we have been listening to the feedback from our customers and as a result we’re introducing over 1,000 new products into our stores over the next few months. One of the things we heard from customers – particularly in this economy – is they want larger portions to feed their families, but they don’t want to break the bank doing it and they still want quality food. Like we always do, we’ve listened. Among several other family sized meals, we introduced the fresh&easy Big Pizza (it serves six people for just $8.99). And like all of our fresh&easy products, it has no artificial flavors, colors, no added trans fats and only uses preservatives when absolutely necessary.

This pizza is so big that we had to take it to the local appliance store to make sure it fit into most ovens! We also had to buy a special piece of machinery at our kitchen facility to pack it because we didn’t have anything quite big enough. Here is Stephanie from our home office making sure it fits into several ovens at an appliance store.


We are excited to be able to offer this and many other new products in our store for you and look forward to your thoughts. As always, please keep the feedback coming!

Cheers!
~ Sallie

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Thursday, June 11, 2009

Taste Testing at fresh&easy

Ever wonder why our fresh&easy branded products always taste great? The answer: Lots of taste testing and development…

Before fresh&easy products hit our shelves, they are sampled in blind taste tests by our own team members. These sessions occur almost daily around our offices and we use the feedback to craft products we think taste just good as or better than leading national brands; all while adding no artificial colors, flavors, trans fats and only using preservatives where we have to.

Recently our fresh&easy Gazpacho, Hummus and Pizza Dough have been popular among customer comments and blogs. So tell us, which fresh&easy products do you think taste the best?

Cheers,
Gary

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Monday, May 18, 2009

following the customer at fresh&easy

"follow the customer" is a phrase we use a lot, to describe the way we do business.

The needs of customers after all are always evolving - think about your own lives - so what could be simpler than just listening to what would help, and then organizing yourself to deliver it. That way, year-in, year-out, your shopping trip is always getting better.

That's exactly what fresh&easy is all about. It was designed by listening to people, and since opening 18 mths ago, it's been evolving on the basis of customer feedback.

A constant request has been for more fresh&easy products, so we continue to innovate in this area. We've recently added, for example, quiche (fresh from our kitchen), pita chips, and gourmet hamburger buns, to name just a few - all of course with no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives, and no added transfat.

However, as the economic climate has got harder, customers have also been asking for help in making their budgets go further, so we've been organizing ourselves to do just that.

Already, you can count on at least 6 different packs of produce at just 98c every week, to help keep fresh produce affordable, and we've introduced stronger promotions, together with a weekly flyer.

But we've also been asked for more family packs, so these are now starting to come into the stores. The family-sized meals, fresh from our kitchen, are one example we've recently introduced, but you can now get bigger sizes of your favorite detergents and cleaners, and across the store we've many more to come.

On the back of customer feedback on our Buxted meat lines and Taurino, we're also introducing many more new brands over the next few weeks that offer outstanding value - all national brand quality, at unbelievably low prices, and only available at fresh&easy. For example, look out for our Mothers Joy breakfast cereals launching next week.

Finally, we're also adding a few more national brands to our stores, in response to specific requests from customers, to make their shopping trips more complete - Guerrero tortillas are one example.

All this adds up to more than 1000 extra products coming into our stores over the summer. And by organizing ourselves, we can do this without taking anything away - by adding extra shelves, and fine-tuning how we use our space.

So by "following the customer", we end up with a better shopping trip. It's good for us, and it's good for our customers.

And that, surely, is how it should be.....

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Thursday, May 14, 2009

fresh&easy gives back to schools

Last year, we heard a lot from our neighbors, customers and employees about how hard-hit schools have been because of the current economy. So we created a fundraising program called Shop for Schools to help. Today we announced that our first ever Shop for Schools program helped raise over $130,000 for schools in California, Arizona and Nevada!

The school that raised the most money in each state was awarded a $5,000 bonus. We presented the winning schools with their checks today at celebrations we threw at their neighborhood stores. The money raised can go toward anything the schools need most, from art supplies and books to playground equipment. We’re excited to share this video with you of Tim Mason, our CEO, presenting Mountain Meadows Elementary School in Moorpark, CA with a $10,000 donation!



Congratulations to all the participating schools on their fundraising efforts!

Cheers!
~Sallie

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Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Planting Trees In South LA With fresh&easy

On Saturday, April 18th we partnered with the LA Conservation Corps and Councilwoman Jan Perry to plant 60 trees around South LA in celebration of Earth Day.

We met at our future store site at Central and Adams and had a great time helping to beautify the neighborhood!

Special thanks to all the volunteers from the community who came out to help make South LA greener, one tree at a time. Here's some footage from this fantastic day!



Cheers,
Gary

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Friday, April 24, 2009

Good Food in Frugal Times

Just because we are in a recession doesn't mean that we should have to compromise the quality and taste of our groceries. Staying at home and cooking is a simple way to save money, but it can be overwhelming to plan meals in advance and around deals. We pulled together some helpful links that have tips to help save in these tough economic times.

Here are some of our favorite blogs that battle the recession blues with good food:
  • Recession Recipes - Take two inspired cooks and mix with seasonal ingredients, recent deals from many stores and add a splash of creativity and you have recipes that are not only recession proof, but downright beautiful.
  • LA Cheapskate - Cindy scouts for deals and plans a whole weekly meal plan around what she finds. Have leftover ham? She's got you covered on ways to get more meals for your buck.
  • CookThink - Plug in the ingredients you already have at home and it will come up with a gourmet recipe you. Its perfect for those nights when you can't think of anything to do with that pineapple, those pork chops from the freezer, and the can of diced tomatoes from the back of the pantry.
Some more excellent blogs to visit when looking for frugal tips:
Some Fresh & Easy insider tips:
  • Each Wednesday we launch new extra low price specials across our stores. They are updated on our website where you can view all the deals by downloading your weekly flyer for your area.
  • In different aisles throughout our stores you will find our newest promotion “Buy more & save."
  • Each day we have special mark downs in our clearance section at the end of our refrigerated aisle.
  • If you haven’t already, sign up for our Friends of Fresh & Easy emails and we’ll send you our latest news and exclusive offers.
What are your special tips for saving money and sources for good tips and deals? We are always listening, so please share your thoughts!

~Sallie

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Friday, April 10, 2009

Review what you sampled at our fresh&easy Kitchen Table


Each day in our stores we sample signature fresh&easy products at our Kitchen Table. The result is lots of helpful feedback on the different sampling items and you are introduced to new and different products all the time.

Since we’re always finding ways to listen to our customers we’ve just launched a Kitchen Table Product Review section on our website. If you’ve recently sampled something, we invite you write a brief review that may end up on our Homepage!

Stop by next time you’re in! And of course, let us know what you think.

Cheers,
Gary

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Monday, March 30, 2009

green is the culture at fresh&easy...

In our kind of business, we have hundreds of thousands of contacts with customers every week - people shop our stores frequently.

And it's those contacts in the end, that determine how people perceive our brand.

So from the start, we set out to build a culture based around shared values, and a sense of purpose. That way, our people would just live the brand, while being themselves, with no need rule books or scripted conversations.

I was reminded just how far we've come on this path by our recent set of city meetings.

We do these 3 times a year in all our markets. Tim, our CEO, me and my Executive colleagues go along. We invite all our new team members from the last 4 months, as well as our store managers, to talk about what kind of business we're trying to be, and where we're going.

We've been doing these since we started, when we only had a handful of people, and they've become a real symbol of our culture.

Some of us go on a bit, about the business, about our values, and what's coming up. Then, increasingly central to these sessions, there's a Q&A, where anybody can ask us anything: it's proving a great way us to continually improve the business, as there's no holding back. Finally, Tim closes, with his usual flourish.

What really amazes me though, is how, unprompted, people are increasingly coming dressed up, in green: T-shirts, hats, green wigs, face painting, often to their own design, but all reflecting fresh&easy values (although if you walked in off the street, you might think it was St. Patty's day!).

Attending these, you can understand why we receive hundreds of emails from customers every week, letting us know how great our team members are in the stores. Or why, in our regular surveys, more than 9 out of 10 of our customers are very satisfied with how friendly and helpful our people are.

It demonstrates a simple point - by creating a great place to work, based around shared values, you end up giving your customers great service.

And that, surely, is how it should be...

This is what its like. Check out a video from our last city meeting in Las Vegas..

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Friday, March 27, 2009

5th fresh&easy opens in Gilbert, AZ!

Another great opening in Gilbert, AZ yesterday at Higley & Queen Creek!


We have received a few questions about specific store openings recently. You’ll be glad to know we are continuing to open more stores each month; we just haven’t accelerated as quickly as we initially planned given the state of the economy. As soon as we set opening dates we’ll be sure to let our neighbors know!

To find your local store or if a new fresh&easy is coming to your neighborhood, check out our store locator...

Cheers,
Gary

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Thursday, March 26, 2009

Simon is now on Twitter!

Want Simon’s latest thoughts on fresh&easy and potentially anything else? He’s now officially on Twitter! Click here to begin following him…

Are you on Twitter? We are! Click here to get our latest fresh&easy tweets…

Cheers!
Gary

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Tuesday, March 24, 2009

More ways to share your fresh&easy favorites

One of the striking things about talking with our customers and our people is that everybody has favorite fresh&easy products.

A few months ago, I asked you to tell us your favorite fresh&easy products, and was amazed by the number of responses! Your enthusiasm inspired our in-store fresh&easy favorites poster, where customers can post their favorite products for others to see. Check out the poster in this video we took recently asking a few employees and customers for their fresh&easy favorites…



Given the amount of product comments and all the different favorites we hear about each day, we thought we'd introduce a way to vote for your fresh&easy favorite!

Here’s how it works… Periodically through our Friends of fresh&easy emails, we’ll feature a category of products and then ask you to pick your favorite. Since we just introduced 6 new family-size prepared meals, this month we’re asking which family-sized entrée you enjoy the most. Here are the results for this month’s fresh&easy favorites.

Once voting's finished, we'll then highlight your favorite in-store and use the results to help us develop even better products.

As I've said many times, customer feedback (good or bad) is the lifeblood of our business, it helps us continually improve our shopping trip, so please let us know what you think!

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Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Exclusive peek into the F&E wine tasting room

Every wonder how we select our award winning wines at Fresh & Easy?

Meet our wine buyer, Karen, and our master of wine, Phil. They have the lucky job of sorting through vintages, and working with wine makers from all over the world to bring fantastic quality wines at great prices to our shelves.

Here is a sneak peek into their tasting room, where Karen takes us through some of her favorite wines.



(You heard correctly -- new wines to be introduced on the shelves in April!)

Here is a list of our recent award winning wines.

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