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.

Fresh food in South LA

We were thrilled today to partner with Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry to open our South Los Angeles store – one of the first store locations we identified over two years ago!

This store is part of a broader redevelopment program to revitalize the Central Avenue corridor. We’re excited to be a part of the effort and hope to encourage even more business and growth as a result.

Providing food access and healthier foods to underserved communities has been getting national attention with First Lady Michelle Obama taking up the torch to try to get Americans to eat better and tackle childhood obesity by encouraging better eating habits. We continue to open stores in all types of neighborhoods because we fundamentally believe everyone – regardless of where they live – deserves access to quality, fresh food at affordable prices. In reviewing our the best selling items across all Fresh & Easy stores – from Hollywood to Pasadena to Compton, we have found that fresh fruits and vegetables and quality meats and poultry are consistently best sellers, regardless of the neighborhood.

The opening was quite the neighborhood event – lots of local leaders, friends from the City of LA and neighbors showed up to see the new store. We even had the Jefferson High School marching band perform outside the store!


We presented Councilmember Perry today with a Fresh & Easy Superstar Shirt. Each week, at our company team meeting, we award Superstar Shirts to employees who have gone above and beyond the call of duty to do something extraordinary for our customers or their neighborhoods. This is the first time we’ve ever awarded a Superstar Shirt to someone outside our Fresh & Easy family, but we certainly feel Councilwoman Perry deserves one for her work in revitalizing the area and bring fresh, quality food to residents in the neighborhood.

We also had a team of Fresh & Easy volunteers in the neighborhood to help beautify 28th Street Elementary School by painting murals later this afternoon. One mural of the U.S. Map and the other one reminding kids to eat their fruit and veggies!


For more pictures and stories of the South LA opening, visit here, here and here!

Cheers!
~Sallie

Keeping the green in fresh&easy (and your wallets)

We received some exciting news this week from our partner Verisae, who helps us lower our environmental impact – our energy consumption is 32 percent lower than the industry average for energy usage per square foot.

This is good news not just for the environment... Through the energy saving innovations in our stores, like LED lighting, skylights and energy efficient refrigeration units, we have achieved recurring energy-related cost savings of millions of dollars per year. Savings like this allow us to keep our prices low, everyday for our customers.

See what Environmental Leader had to say here.

Take a look at the Green Building page on our website for more info and check out the amount of energy our 500,000 sq ft solar panel on our Riverside distribution center is producing.

Cheers,
Gary

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.

LEEDing the way to gold certification

Last month we took another big step in our commitment to being a green retailer – we opened our first LEED® Gold Certified store! LEED is the nation’s preeminent program for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.



Our Cathedral City store achieved LEED certification for energy use, lighting, water use and incorporating a variety of other sustainable strategies, such as using 90 percent recycled steel for the building’s structure. On average, all of Fresh & Easy stores use 30% less energy than a typical supermarket and utilize technologies like solar tracking skylights, automatically dimming lights, and LED lighting.



We are also pilot members of the LEED Volume Certification Program which allows companies building multiple buildings with similar formats to streamline the certification process. Because of our membership, we look forward to several future LEED certified stores to come.

Of course, we do this not just because it’s the right thing to do for the environment – it also helps keep our costs (and your grocery bill) down!

Take a look at what these blogs had to say about our opening:

Mother Nature Network
Greenandsave.com
Green Retailing News

You can visit the Green Building section of our web site for more info!

Shop for Schools

Two weeks ago we launched our Shop for Schools program at the opening of our 126th location in Long Beach.

Earlier this year we piloted the program to raise money for K-8th grade schools in the neighborhoods around our stores. We saw an incredible response as schools raised more than $130,000 for whatever they need the funds for. Our store employees, parents and customers all pitched in with ways to enhance the program for this year’s version, so we are hopeful that even more schools will participate!

We have also added a Shopping Night to the program, which allows all registered schools to receive 5% of a store’s sales on a particular evening. One of our Las Vegas team members – Jackie Urban –came up with the idea, which we tried out with such success we decided to roll it out for all of our participating schools.

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

Be sure to check with your local school to see if they are participating – it is not too late to participate! Schools have until October 1st (THURSDAY!) to sign-up at our website

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

more stores opening at fresh&easy

It was a big opening day for us with three new stores in Southern California, including one in Ventura, CA and our first two in Santa Barbara County, CA.

- Channel Islands & Rose, Oxnard
- Clark & Bradley, Orcutt
- H & North, Lompoc

Lots of our neighbors came out to check us out.



Like we do for every opening, we donated $1,000 to a local charity for each store. Congratulations to The Boys and Girls Club in Lompoc, the Orcutt Aqua Center, and the Parent Faculty Organization of Channel Islands High School!



These new stores created nearly 75 new jobs… and we are creating about 25 more for our next store opening in Delano, CA on August 19th!

For more pictures of the store openings check out our Flickr page.

Cheers!
~Sallie

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

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

fresh&easy opens 120th store

We just opened our 120th store at Durango Dr. & El Capitan Way in Las Vegas and our new neighbors stormed in just after the ribbon cutting! Here are some photos…

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

Saving 400,000 pounds of plastic from the landfill

We are working hard at fresh&easy to live up to our value of being a good neighbor by finding innovative and practical ways to reduce our carbon footprint.

We have found that by being thoughtful and paying attention to the little things, we can make a big impact. Take our ultra violet light sanitation machine for example. This one-of-a-kind machine was built by UV Doctor, a business based in LasVegas, that gives us the ability to sanitize and reuse our plastic display trays.
















This handy little machine sanitizes 60 trays per minute, which has already kept a whopping 400,000 pounds of plastic out of landfills. That amounts to approximately 24 elephants, or one full sized blue whale!

We have also committed to build LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified buildings, and voluntarily joined the California Climate Action Registry and The Climate Registry to disclose our greenhouse gas emissions. Check out our 500k square foot solar roof live-feed on our distribution center in Riverside which currently produces over 75% of the center's energy.

For the full scoop on the F&E UV sanitation machine and to find the ways you can make a difference, visit Earth911.