Fresh
& Easy is what a food retailer must be today and Fresh & Easy
Neighborhood was simply not fresh enough.
Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market’s still looks more like yesterday’s
retailer than tomorrow’s retailer. How
could that be? When you buy a company
for a rock bargain price one would think they would have understood, that the"fresh"
in Fresh & Easy was not there and is still not there!
Foodservice
Solutions® Grocerant Guru™ say it’s simple Fresh & Easy new team tried to
run the company like it was 1999. They are
operating in a world where consumers are meal orientated not pantry orientated.
The consumer has moved to the Grocerant
niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat platform.
Fresh
& Easy today continues to be misguided, missed priced, missed positioned,
and they missed understanding FRESH in
the retail food market place. According
to Bloomberg Fresh & Easy
Neighborhood Market Inc. could file for bankruptcy protection for the second
time as early as next week.
Albertson’s long talked about
IPO was delayed this past week after Walmart numbers guided down. Albertson's like Walmart still wants to fill
your pantry and that is not a customer count or sales driver today. Aldi, WinCo, and Amazon have filled the low cost position leaving
Albertson’s and Walmart stuck in the middle.
In
the event Fresh & Easy were to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection,
it would be the second major grocery and convenience store company seeking such
protection this year, following a filing by Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea
Co., operator of A&P stores, in July. That does not include 145 units of
Hagen that filed for bankruptcy. These
stuck in the middle companies are not doing well.
Our own Grocerant Guru™ stated “Many food retailers fail to understand
the day-part meal opportunity solutions because they aren't really in the meals
business. Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat
fresh prepared food continues to drive change at the retail level driven by
customer migration. Fresh & Easy and A&P may well have fallen into the
catch 22 trap by running operations more like yesterday than tomorrow.
It is important to
remember that many grocery food retails jumped on the HMR bandwagon in the
mid-1980’s and early 1990’s only to miss the opportunity because they focused
on cost and did not understand the customer, and /or foodservice and they never been really wanted to be in the Meals Business they wanted to
be in the pantry business. That’s not
working so well today is it?
Most important many legacy retailers do not understand the “food”
need-set of the consumer. Simply put
food quality never takes a step backwards and Consumer Are Eating-Out while Eating-In. Lesson learned:
don’t let your retail outlet look more like yesterday than tomorrow. Aldi is now opening stores in California and
that is going to be very hard on the retail operations of Albertsons, Safeway,
Fresh & Easy.
Invite
Foodservice Solutions® to complete a Grocerant
Scorecard or a Grocerant Program Assessment. Since 1991 www.FoodserviceSolutions.us of Tacoma, WA has been the
global leader in the Grocerant niche visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson,
Linkedin.com/in/grocerant or
twitter.com/grocerant Contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us
No comments:
Post a Comment