Saturday, October 17, 2015

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Still Looks Likes Yesterday’s Retailer




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
 

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