Tesco said it expects to have 30 Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets open by Christmas and 20 more open before the end of its fiscal year in late February.
Beyond those 50 stores and 10 other sites it has already identified, it has 100 more locations in the pipeline, Tim Mason, chief executive officer of Tesco’s U.S. operations, told Convenience Store Decisions’ sister company Supermarket News following a media conference.
Stores will begin opening in early November — slightly beyond the late October timeframe the company had previously identified — although Mason declined to pinpoint the exact date of the openings, the number of stores scheduled to open or their specific locations.
During the conference Mason disclosed the locations of 12 Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets scheduled to open in the Greater Los Angeles area, plus five additional locations in the final stages of negotiations. The 12 stores, including locations in Hollywood, Long Beach, Compton and Arcadia, encompass a variety of white, African American and Hispanic areas with populations from different income levels.
