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| "The Big Kahuna" on the shelf at a Fresh & Easy store in California. |
El Segundo, California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's "The Big Kahuna" proprietary or private brand wine has been launched in Tesco-owned stores in the United Kingdom and South Korea, along with being offered for sale by the case on the UK-based retailer's Tesco.com website.
Tesco-owned Fresh & Easy introduced "The Big Kahuna" as its in-house value-priced wine brand over three years ago, following a path blazed most successfully in the U.S. by Trader Joe's with its super-popular $1.99 per bottle Charles Shaw brand wine, more commonly referred to as "Two-Buck Chuck," the huge success of which has spawned similar priced value brand copy-cat versions from nearly every major food and grocery retailer in the country.
The Australian-produced "The Big Kahuna" comes in two varieties: Cabernet Shiraz (at top) and Chardonnay.
Fresh & Easy sells the wine in its stores in California (127 units) for $1.99 (750-ml bottle), and for 2.99 per bottle in its Nevada (21 units) and Arizona (28 units) grocery markets.
The wine is being offered at a higher price-point in the UK than at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in the U.S.
For example, Tesco is offering Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market-developed "The Big Kahuna" wine brand for a considerably higher price on its Tesco.com website in the UK. The current price per case is £22.80 (£3.80 per bottle), which is about $37.18 per case, or $6.19 per bottle, based on today's British pound to U.S. dollar conversion rate. The per-bottle retail in the stores it's currently in is a bit higher.
Tesco has a long history of offering Australian wines in its stores in the UK and in Asia, particularly South Korea. In fact, the British retailer is the largest customer of wine produced in Australia, largely based on the numerous Tesco proprietary or private brand wines produced for the retailer in the country.
It's a logical and smart move for Tesco to offer Fresh & Easy's "The Big Kahuna" brand wine in its UK and South Korea stores as well as online via Tesco.com. Doing so expands the number of points-of-distribution - and thus increases total sales - for the brand, which in turn should allow Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market to obtain a lower cost of goods for "The Big Kahuna" from its Australian producer.
A lower cost of goods means a better gross margin on the wine for Fresh & Easy, which is important because at $1.99 and $2.99 per bottle retails, along with the shipping costs from Australia, there isn't much gross margin in "The Big Kuhuna," or any other wine with similar overseas origin and the same points.
But even a few pennies cost savings per bottle can add up to nice little profit boost on the wine for Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market because the value-priced "The Big Kahuna" is a high volume brand for the grocer.
Additionally, since the Australian producer of "The Big Kahuna" also produces additional proprietary wine brands for Tesco, it makes good top and bottom line sense to us to maximize the brand opportunities across all its chains globally for UK-based Tesco whenever it makes sense.
"The Big Kahuna" is the second private brand developed at El Segundo, California-based Fresh & Easy that Tesco is distributing in its stores in the UK, where it's the leading retailer of food and groceries.
The first brand, which we broke the news about in these two stories - June 26, 2011: Tesco Bringing Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's 'goodness for kids' Brand to the UK - With a 'Tesco' Twist; and June 27, 2011: Tesco Introduces First Items in Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market-Developed 'Tesco goodness for kids' Brand in United Kingdom Stores - is "Tesco Goodness for kids", which is based on the "fresh&easy goodness for kids" brand developed in Southern California.
The Australian-produced wine brand with the Hawaiian name, "The Big Kahuna," is the first Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market-developed private brand product to be sold in Tesco's stores in Asia we're aware of, in this case the country being South Korea.
Interestingly, we suggested in this March 8, 2011 piece - March 8, 2011: Tesco's Fresh & Easy ♥'s California With 27 New Varieties of Proprietary Brand Wines From the Golden State - that Tesco should take a few or all of Fresh & Easy's then new proprietary brands of California wines to the United Kingdom and South Korea.
Perhaps a few of those brands of wine produced in California will be the next ? Stay tuned.
Related Stores
Read more about wine at these links: California wine competitions, Fresh and Easy proprietary wines, Fresh and Easy wine, fresh and easy wine category, liquor wine beer categories, wine awards, Wine Category Report, wine merchandising, Side by Side wine, category wine
Additionally, you can read past stories in our Private Brand Showcase feature here.
