Tale Of Two Supermarkets: Why Fresh & Easy Flopped & Fairway Flies High
April 24, 2013 | 1 min to read
The death of one high-profile grocery chain, and the ascendancy of another, tells us a lot about what Americans want in a supermarket—and what we’re just not buying.
On Wednesday, Fairway, the beloved New York-centric supermarket chain, went public, and shares of the company quickly shot up 39%. Born as a produce stand on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Fairway now has a dozen locations, and it plans on opening as many as 300 stores around the country.
Also on Wednesday, news spread that Fresh & Easy, the supermarket brand launched in the U.S. five years ago by Tesco, Britain’s biggest grocery company, was officially a failure. Tesco announced it would cut its losses on Fresh & Easy, taking a write-off of roughly $1.8 billion. The 200 existing Fresh & Easy stores, all in the American West, are up for sale.
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