Fresh & Easy to be Sold Off by Parent Company
The British parent company of Fresh & Easy grocery stores is selling off the chain in yet another failed bid by a foreign company to enter the American grocery market.
Tesco, Britain's largest retailer, hopes to sell the chain as a whole in an attempt to preserve the more than 5,000 jobs in Fresh & Easy's nearly 200 stores.
Tesco first opened Fresh & Easy in the western part of the U.S. in 2007, months before the subprime mortgage crisis pushed the economy into a recession.
But the company was not just hamstrung by shrinking wallets.
Food shopping habits of Americans - especially in the western part of the U.S. - were not compatible with Fresh & Easy's model. Tesco's grocery stores in the UK are designed for urban shoppers who travel on public transportation and pick up groceries on-the-go.
The more than 200 Fresh & Easy stores are located in Arizona, California and Nevada.
Three Fresh & Easy stores are located in South Los Angeles, including one at the intersection of Jefferson Boulevard and Figueroa Street in the University Gateway Apartment complex.
The failed bid by Tesco is only the latest by a foreign retailer to capture the American food shopping market. Companies from the Netherlands, France, Canada and the UK, including Marks & Spencer, have all tried their luck with American shoppers. Only two companies - German-owned grocers Aldi and Trader Joe's - have succeeded.
