I've been watching Tesco for two years now, ever since they announced they were coming here. I have a friend who works in the office of a local oil company in Cincinnati (Charles probably knows them, Lykins Oil, out of Milford), and they run a few convenience stores. She sent me the story of Tesco announcement, that they announced plans for like 50 stores, yet they had plans for distribution centers that would handle 4 or 5 times that amount. I told her they'd have 200 stores within a couple of years, and that Wal Mart, Kroger, Albertsons and Safeway had better watch their butts.
They built a building in LA, a really big one, told the locals that it was a sound stage, and inside they built a fully functional prototype store, and ran it for a year while doing the market research. A year. Then they started opening stores like crazy. They've slowed the pace a little because of the economy, but they're still on pace to have more than 200 stores by the end of the year.
The stores are grocery stores, but smaller. They're the size of a Walgreens. Instead of a "destination store" like Wal Mart or a large grocery store, they dot these all over the place like convenient stores to make it easy to get in and out, like on the way home from work. They don't call them Fresh and Easy Neighborhood Markets for nothing. They have them all around various neighborhoods to make it easy to get in and out quickly.
They emphasize Fresh, and they do it far better than someone like Wal Mart with it's large regional distribution centers could ever hope. Many stores get 2 or 3 deliveries a day, in order to keep fresh stuff on the shelves. Perishables like meat, dairy and produce come from local suppliers, instead of being frozen and trucked in from 3 days away. Nearly everything is organic, even the canned stuff. And rather than concentrate on a vast variety of brands, they concentrate on quality, best of the bunch.
Where they excel is in the freshly prepared meals to go. The concept is diferent from going to the grocery for a week's worth of stuff. At Fresh and Easy they make it easy to run in there on a daily basis and grab what you want for a day or two, you're in and out in or 10 minutes, and it's ready to heat and serve. All the stuff is made fresh throughout the day, never frozen. The lasagna is to kill or die for, comes in a large tub, 25 ounces, I think. They've got these killer loaded baked potatoes. Shepherds pie, mushroom stroganoff, chicken carbonara, chicken Caesar, lots of stuff, including sushi. It's the stuff you'd make at home, using high quality, fresh, organic ingredients.
Right now they're only in LA, Phoenix and Vegas, and surrounding areas. But they're supposed to be moving more towards the Midwest before too long. Probably Chicago or Dallas first.
The prices are very good, and on the fresh stuff, they usually have a "sell by" date of 1-3 days, but most items are fine for several days after that date. If it doesn't sell by that date, tho, it gets marked down 50%, so if you're buying for that night meal, you can get some amazing bargains.
Being in a cargo van with a microwave and little else in the way of kitchenry, I'm a big fan of Fresh and Easy.
Here's the one I went to in North Las Vegas, and a few of the items I bought. (the shots of the food are phone camera shots, so they're kind of crappy)
