There is something wrong with this picture, this mess

Doesn't that store look clean, organized and easy to navigate? Now thinking of Ralphs or Vons...do any of those sentiments come to mind? I didn't think so. Clearly, organization and no-nonsense design is part of what makes fresh&easy unique.

Unfortunately, this is what greeted me at the Tustin and Chapman location yesterday:

Yes, that is an overbearing, ugly cardboard display that is pawning off Frito-Lay products and impeding entry to the store!

Mr. Uwins,

After carefully cultivating the unique fresh&easy concept, and selling consumers on a clutter free, easy in-easy out store design, why are tactics like a a mountain of potato chips being used?

As other blogs have pointed out, your customers appreciate what makes F&E unique and are concerned about the changes that are being made. Continuing to introduce clutter (like this potato chip mountain), eliminating organic products and installing national brands of questionable food quality will alienate your biggest supporters

While many of the changes have been made under the guise of 'customer demand,' perhaps customers need to be informed about why a F&E brand product is better than a national brand or how $0.29 extra for a bottle of Organic Iced Tea with Lemonade is a small price to pay for a step toward sustainability.

Thanks for listening,

-Tom

Food with integrity may not be an organic product line, or a simple marketing promise, but every choice we make about the food we buy is a piece of the sustainability puzzle. fresh&easy can be part of the solution, we just have to encourage them to care.

Tell F&E you want more sustainable food choice

Although I've focused on just Organic Lemonade and Organic Iced Tea with Lemonade, sustainable food choice carries over to every product available in store. We must demand more organic and natural food choices at fresh&easy. Additionally, F&E needs to stop eliminating existing organic products. 

Please contact fresh&easy and tell them that you care about sustainable food and that you expect F&E to be a champion for affordable sustainability.

• Twitter: @Fresh_and_Easy
• Twitter: @SimonUwins
• Website: freshandeasy.com
• Leave comments on Flickr Photos, YouTube Videos & the F&E Blog

Also, next time you are shopping for produce, use this handy guide from organic-center.org to reduce your exposure to pesticide residue. That's right...by choosing Organic you are helping both the earth and yourself!

(organic-center.org)

Twitter is great for two way communication, as long as you don't complain

Here is a story from the twitterverse: 

So when I saw product changes a couple months later that seemed poor, I let fresh&easy know.

(note that I later corrected to Nestlé) F&E had no response. When the new non-organic product was missing from the shelves, I wrote to F&E again.

It is now Sunday, October 18, 2009 and I still haven't received a response via twitter for any of my comments. Why solicit customer feedback if you don't acknowledge that you receive it?  While I am not being blocked by @Fresh_and_Easy, I'm surely being ignored. 

Budget prices. Quality you can trust. Why compromise?

Budget prices. Quality you can trust. Why compromise?

The above picture links to the first issue of 'neighborhood news' where fresh&easy introduced us to this concept.

Below, Organic Iced Tea with Lemonade should be in the open spot. Note the price...$3.28. Above that is Organic Lemonade which was sold at $3.48

And here is the replacement product. Iced Tea with Lemonade for $2.99 and Lemonade for $2.99.

Mr. Uwins, fresh&easy is compromising by eliminating more sustainable products like Organic Iced Tea with Lemonade and Organic Lemonade for a very small savings. Supporting sustainable agriculture is worth $0.29. (or $0.49 for Organic Lemonade)  

So what is the big deal with sustainable food anyway?

So after watching Hammy the Hamster are you still uncertain why sustainable food options matter and why organic foods are better?  That's okay. On the most basic level, Whole Foods points out:

Choose Organic, originally uploaded by Heath & the B.L.T. boys.

From above: "Organic agriculture meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations. It prohibits genetically engineered seeds or crops, sewage sludge, long-lasting pesticides, herbicides and fungicides." 

Doesn't that seem like a good thing? After all, we've seen what problems pesticides can cause...(check out this post about Bananas and pesticides). You might also want to check out The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals which discusses the disconnect between the food we eat and the ingredients it is made from. 

At fresh&easy, the virtues of organic food...of sustainable food need to be communicated to the average consumer. Informing customers about why an organic banana, or why organic iced tea with lemonade costs slightly more will lead to informed purchases of organic products which will then lead to more sustainable production and lower prices. 

True or False: wholesome food, not whole paycheck

ingredients you can pronounce
Originally uploaded by Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

If you walk or drive around Orange you might have noticed the new advertisements for fresh&easy. They tout the organic, natural aspects of their food and the inexpensive prices.

On their website, you can see they even poke fun at Whole Foods which has the slang name Whole Paycheck. But you've already seen that F&E has reduced the organic and F&E brand products and very few of the new 'low priced' products are whole...sustainable and organic.

sticker shock

Originally uploaded by Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

So it may be true F&E food won't cost you your whole paycheck but, your selection of whole foods is limited. Are you seeing sticker shock in a bad way?

Making more room but not for what we want

Why many of [us] love you is because of your streamline, uncluttered stores...which, sadly, seems to slowly going away now. We love that we don't have to go through a dozen brands of the same damn thing...which we now have to go through a few more brands that we are used to.

If you turn into just another cluttered, overstocked grocery store, you are going to lose the appeal that is worth me driving 3 miles for. I could easily just walk around the corner to Vons if I want a cluttered, overstocked grocery store. [Read more at Temple of Fresh&Easy: Ch-ch-ch-Change]

If you frequent fresh&easy you might have noticed that the stores are a little darker than they used to be. Overnight, the shelves throughout the store, including the ones by the windows have been raised so high that they had to cover windows with black plastic. I wasn't the only person who noticed.

When I saw the unfriendly black plastic for the first time, I thought back to the F&E website and this quote: "We maximize use of natural daylight in our stores". That's funny, because I'm pretty sure that no light will be passing through the black plastic, shelves or hair care products that are in the way. 

But that isn't the point. As the shelves get higher, the number of organic products is still limited. The new products being introduced are not organic and are often not F&E brands which are known for being artificial color/preservative free. Why can't this space be used to introduce more sustainable options? 

fresh&easy juices and teas, originally uploaded by Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.

This photo is from May 2009. Note the number of organic drinks including lemonade and tea.Today these items are no longer organic. Mr. Uwins, with all this extra space, why can't we have refrigerators full of organic options?

Addressing change at fresh&easy

ribbon cutting at the store grand opening of Orcutt, CA
Originally uploaded by Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market

Dear Mr. Simon Uwins,

You've worked hard to bring us a great market experience, showing us that food can be sustainable and affordable. Only now, as you increase the number of items available in the store, you have eliminated many organic and fresh&easy branded options.

This included converting Organic Lemonade, Organic Iced Tea with Lemonade to traditional drinks as well as eliminating fresh&easy ready-to-bake cook cookies.

We understand that affordability is important for today's consumers. However, fresh&easy's association with it's parent company Tesco, the third largest retailer in the world should provide significant leverage for providing affordable organic and sustainable options. As you have spent at least 20 years working with Tesco, you must understand that your actions influence global trends.

You often tweet about products that do not contain artificial flavor. Your recent marketing campaign touts the green elements of F&E stores and food.

You can fix this. It begins by bringing back Organic Iced Tea with Lemonade, Organic Lemonade and F&E brand ready to bake cookies. It continues by introducing more organic options. Mr. Uwins, you have an obligation to ensure that the food you sell is truly as responsible as you are marketing it to be. Please be an advocate for food with integrity, please make fresh&easy an example for all the other markets to follow.

Thanks for listening,
-Tom

Explaining 'Food With Integrity'

Previously, I mentioned the concept of 'Food With Integrity.' Well, I actually learned about if from mexican food! Have you ever visited a Chipotle? You know, Chipotle Mexican Grill.  
In the unlikely event you haven't visited before, it is a quick service restaurant that constructs mexican style food on a production line with delicious and fresh components. On their cups, Chipotle often includes quirky narratives about their business.  This is where I first was introduced to the concept of Food With Integrity. On the Chipotle website, they elaborate on their vision: (I added the bold for effect.)

"Food With Integrity" isn't a marketing slogan. It's not a product line of natural and organic foods. And it's not a corporate initiative that will ever be finished or set aside to make room for other priorities. It's a philosophy that we can always do better in terms of the food we buy. And when we say better, we mean better in every sense of the word- better tasting, coming from better sources, better for the environment, better for the animals, and better for the farmers who raise the animals and grow the produce.

If you are interested in more reading or even a movie about how Food With Integrity works, check out Food, Inc either on amazon or in theaters. 

You see, the quest for quality food must be more than a marketing slogan. Every choice, including removing the 'Organic' from Iced Tea with Lemonade ether helps or negates efforts to make food more sustainable.

The thrills and chills of a new neighbor[hood market]

A long time ago at a place far far away, I worked at a themed resort in an alligator park the size of manhattan. At the resort, I discovered a delicious drink called 'The Earl's Grey Lemonade.' This beverage is a perfect synergy of lemonade and iced tea that can't be described with words. Sadly, to return to college I had to move far far away from The Earl of Sandwich (the home of The Earl's Gray Lemonade). Back here in California, I tried to make my own Iced Tea Lemonade but it resulted in more mess than enjoyable drink.

That might seem unrelated, but stick with me...
Driving to school one day, I saw a new sign for "fresh&easy Neighborhood Market." Intrigued, I searched the internet for this new store and was delighted by what I saw. Fresh, organic, environmentally responsible, affordable...I had found the perfect store for me!


Organized, no clutter, well designed packages, recyclable plastic, hybrid parking...fresh&easy was perfect! I looked into one of the the LED (light emitting diode) lit refrigerators and Organic Iced Tea with Lemonade stared back at me. 

I had finally found a replacement for The Earl's Grey Lemonade. In fact, fresh&easy neighborhood market improved upon my favorite drink. Convenient, delicious and organic, I consumed countless bottles of Iced Tea with Lemonade, Strawberry Lemonade, and Lemonade. 

Other than the occasional stocking deficiency, fresh&easy remained the perfect market for me. I hadn't stepped into a Ralphs, Vons or Albertsons since the store opened. 

Fast forward a year, this summer I went home to New Jersey to visit my family. 30 days later, I returned to my fresh&easy in Orange looking to stock up on drinks and food. Only my Organic Iced Tea with Lemonade was gone! It had quietly been converted to not being organic while I was away.

That is when I started to notice that the store was changing. Organic Iced Tea Lemonade was eliminated. So was Organic Lemonade. Suddenly, the F&E brand ready to bake cookies had been replaced with Nestlé toll house brands. Vanillin, an artificial flavor? No thanks. 

The conversion of Iced Tea with Lemonade and Lemonade to non-organic products is only the beginning of what I see as negative compromises at fresh&easy. 


Specifically I want fresh&easy to:

• Stop moving away from organic options
• Stop eliminating F&E branded foods and replacing them with national brands that contain artificial colors, flavors and preservatives
• Stop introducing clutter

So, while you might not love Iced Tea with Lemonade like I do, stick around and I'll show you why you should care about your ability to buy food with integrity, what that means, and why fresh&easy is still our best hope for bringing affordable and sustainable food to everyone.