Brand Extension: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Introduces 'eatwell' Fresh Meat Lines

By Zaki musthofa at 22.18

Private Brand Showcase

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has extended its eatwell healthy foods' private brand into the fresh meat category, with the launch of a new line of Chicken Sausages and two value-added meat lines - eatwell Chicken Bake and eatwell Chicken Stir Fry (pictured above and below) - into its 182 fresh food and grocery stores in California, Nevada and Arizona.

The eatwell Chicken Sausages line, which hit some Fresh & Easy stores last week and others this week, based on our regular store visits and conversations with store workers, includes varieties like the Mild Italian and Apple Cinnamon varieties pictured below.

The Chicken Bake items, which include a tray for cooking in the oven, and the eatwell Stir-Fry SKUs come in varieties like the Roasted Red Pepper, Chipotle and Mango and Cajun-Style, pictured at top.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is currently featuring the eatwell sausages at a 2-for-$7 (16oz pkg.) introductory price. The Chicken Bake and Stir-Fry items, both of which as also 16oz, are being offered at a 2-for-$10 introductory price in the stores.

The extension of the eatwell private brand - Fresh & Easy uses F&E as a co-brand on the items - into the meat and value-added meat categories is part of a major expansion of the brand, which the El Segundo, California based grocery chain began in December 2011.

In January of this year Tesco's Fresh & Easy began launching numerous new eatwell items in the brand's existing categories - fresh-prepared foods/refrigerated, dry grocery and frozen foods. That launch, which includes about 60 new items, continues this month.

In the summer of 2010 Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market extended its eatwell private brand into the dry grocery category, as we reported in this story - August 18, 2010: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Extending 'eatwell' Healthy Foods' Private Brand Into Dry Grocery Category. Prior to that the brand was only used for fresh-prepared foods.

Up until late last year the grocery chain offered just a few eatwell items in the dry grocery category, such as canned chili and snack crackers.

But beginning in December 2011 and continuing through the present, Fresh & Easy has been launching numerous eatwell dry grocery items, such as: boxed breakfast cereals, instant oatmeal, whole grain and vegetable pasta SKUs, pasta and grill sauces, boxed meal kits (like Macaroni & Cheeseburger; just add meat and prepare), chocolate chip fiber snack bars and some others.

Fresh & Easy also introduced refrigerated tortillas under the eatwell brand in January, a line of frozen dairy desserts, bagged Italian salad kits (produce), a line of refrigerated heat-and-eat soups similar to those if offers under its Fresh & Easy brand, and numerous new fresh-prepared meal items.

The grocery chain also promoted its eatwell healthy foods' brand in January (see the instant oatmeal and cereal endcap display below, for example), offering numerous items at sale prices in its weekly advertising circulars and via its "Friends of Fresh & Easy" e-mail flyer, which it now combines with its "Friends" loyalty/rewards card.

For example, for about three weeks last month Fresh & Easy promoted its eatwell frozen meals, which as we reported here the grocer introduced in September 2010, a month after it extended the healthy foods' private brand into the dry grocery category in August 2010, in its stores, as well as featuring them in the two promotional media vehicles noted above.

As you can see in the photos below, which were taken at a store in Northern California on January 7, 2012 by Fresh & Easy Buzz's senior correspondent, Tesco's Fresh & Easy gave its eatwell brand frozen meals multiple facings and plenty of freezer case space during the January 2012 promotion.