Listening to you – it’s a piece of cake!

We really love hearing from you. We love getting your comments about what you like and what you think we should improve. When we first set out to design and build Fresh & Easy, we went out and asked people what they wanted from a grocery store. Now, just a few short years later listening is still a huge part of how we run our company and we’re happy to report we have many ways to connect with you – through our website, Twitter, Customer Favorites and Kitchen Table polls, and now Facebook.

But it’s not just about taking the time to listen to your comments – it’s about figuring out a way to respond. Take for example the case of the fresh&easy Gourmet Chocolate Cupcakes.

Oakley, creator of the independent fan blog Temple of Fresh & Easy, bites into the sweet success of bringing back the fan favorite.

When we discontinued these cupcakes due to shipping and distribution issues, our in-boxes were immediately flooded with feedback from customers who missed their chocolaty goodness. We heard everything from “I cannot live without my chocolate cupcakes” to “I am devastated the cupcakes are no longer in the stores.” So we quickly figured out a way to get the cupcakes back on our shelves in just three weeks.

We also recently launched several more gluten free products and you might have noticed that we brought back and added new fresh&easy baking mixes, all as a direct response to customer feedback.


So as you bite into that chocolate cupcake or bake that vanilla bean cake, go right ahead and thank yourself and your neighbors. And keep the feedback and ideas coming, because we’re listening.

Cheers!
~Sallie

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

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.....

Sampling at our fresh&easy kitchen table

The Kitchen Table is the heart of our stores and offers customers the opportunity to sample different products and taste our signature dishes.
Scott, a fresh&easy team member, gives a quick overview of what's sampling this week at our Kitchen Table in this short video.



Next time you're in, stop by the Kitchen Table and sample some products. And then of course, be sure to review them at www.freshandeasy.com/KitchenTable. Your review may even be featured on our homepage!

Happy sampling!
Gary

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!