Listening to our Customers

If you have been following us on Twitter or Facebook lately, you’ve probably seen us asking for your input on many different aspects of the store, including vegetarian and vegan products you love and would like to see in our stores. Since we first opened, vegetarian options have been one of the most common dietary requests we receive from customers, second only to gluten-free products.

In January, based on customer input, we added new gluten-free products to our range and made them easier to find in our stores. To kick off the discussion about improving our vegetarian options, we invited a group of customers over to our home office to share with us what kinds of food they look for in our stores as well as their ideas for fresh&easy vegetarian/vegan items.


We had a really great and informative conversation and we want to thank all of these bloggers for spending their evening talking about food with us! We learned a lot from you, as always.

A big thank you to:

Nhershoes
Newlywife
Sweatpantsmom
All things food

We still would love more feedback on what vegetarians or vegans would like to see in our stores, so please leave us a comment here on the blog and let us know what items you would like to be able to get at your local Fresh & Easy!

Cheers!

~Sallie

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!



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!



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

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.


(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!



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

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

Wining & Dining with Chef Mike

Last Thursday night we had a great time cooking, eating, drinking and laughing (a lot) with a few blogger friends. Our own Chef Mike cooked for us and even taught us a thing or two about making great food.



LA bloggers gathered to taste our exclusive wines and try out the delicious, fast and easy meals that Chef Mike put together using all fresh&easy ingredients which never contain artificial colors, flavors or added trans fats and only use preservatives when absolutely necessary. The group even donned aprons to make homemade margarita pizzas and prepped the ingredients for apricot chicken tenders, salmon with peanut sauce and veggies, and beef fajitas.

Here are some pictures and a video of the event, the food and the fun. (Special thanks to Oakley for the permission to use some of her pictures.)


These easy Beef Fajitas were a hit and serve four for less than $5 each


Ana, Melissa and Silvia roll out dough for the pizzas


Cynthia, Amy, and Lee tweet and share some laughs


Handmade margarita pizzas made with love by Lupe, Annette, Bernadette and Marsha


Ready to cook in less than 10 minutes and serves 4 for less than $8



And who could forget dessert? A delectable sampling of fresh&easy banana cream pie, tiramisu cake, and gourmet chocolate cupcakes was definitely a hit!

For more pictures of the event, visit our Flickr page and the Flickr pages of bloggers Annette and Oakley. We hope everyone had as much fun as we did!