Ambitious plans stifled by crisis
Fresh & Easy is a chain of about 200 smaller supermarkets along the West Coast and in Arizona. In the financial
year 2011/2012, the company had sales of approximately 750 million euro.
Owner Tesco had ambitious plans for the chain, which
started in 2007, and invested around 1.1 billion euro in it. The
last few years big losses piled up and thus the project was halted. Apparently a lot of chains underestimate the
cost to compete in a competitive market such as the United States. Even finding
decent locations is hard work. The added stress of the economic crisis also is not
helpful.
Aldi Süd already has Aldi locations in the
US, while Aldi Nord has a cooperation with discounter Trader Joe’s. Together
both Aldi groups have 1400 locations in the US, so splitting up Fresh & Easy between them both
is far from impossible.
