Okay, I admit it: I have a new love. I visit him every Saturday. And he gives me flowers. I don’t have a new man, I have a new grocery store. Fresh and Easy, the American branch of Tesco, opened a few miles from my house. I love it. The shop is smaller, and the aisles are wider than a traditional big box grocer, so it takes a lot less time for me to shop.
They also always give me a bunch of flowers when I leave. Okay, granted, they’re the older flowers that they can’t really sell, but HEY. Free sunflowers and daisies!
I also buy much healthier food and much less junk and impulse crap because, get this, they don’t have very much of it. There are no endcaps with bright signage and little logoed elves taunting me to buy their package of lard and high fructose corn syrup. There are only two kinds of ketchup to choose from, not thirteen, so aisles don’t stretch as far as the eye can see. I find that I buy much healthier foods when I shop there. That’s different than the Tesco I remember visiting in Ireland. Nestle had the entire place bent over at the middle. You couldn’t go down ANY aisle without the Nestle people shoving some sugary, processed product into your cart. It was a little weird.
The store brands of foods use as little packaging as possible, and don’t contain artificial colors or preservatives or weird stuff I can’t pronounce. Case in point: I bought a pack of Fresh and Easy Strawberry Jell-o. I got home, and tasted it, and discovered it tastes…different. And then I read the label. ohhhh. It’s made from STRAWBERRIES and SUGAR. No wonder it tastes different from regular Jell-o.
There are a few down sides, though. You really have to watch the produce, because it spoils much faster than the Smith’s stuff. Plus, they’ll sell produce up to and including its labeled “Best By” date, so you have to watch it. You have to dig in the milk cooler, because the stuff in front expires TODAY and the stuff father back expires in two weeks.
Also, F&E’s website mentions the desire to have their product lines match the neighborhood needs, which is a nice way of saying OH COME ALL YE MEXICANS, FOR WE HAVE CANNED MENUDO ON THE SHELF. Dude, you’re trying too hard. I’ve never known anyone who actually eats menudo, and, while I like seeing the Mexican pastries that I remember from my Southern California childhood in the baked goods aisle (conchas, orejas, bolillos), I think they’re trying too hard with some other stuff. Plus, I haven’t seen a Mexican in there yet.
Their prices are lower than Smith’s, so that’s nice. The employees are all very friendly, and even though the cashier’s area is supposed to be a self-checkout area, they always offer to help me scan and bag.
Even the lighting is better. They use a lot of natural light, which the Smith’s doesn’t use at all. The aisles aren’t as tall, so the sunshine really fills the whole store. It makes a difference. Plus, they have family parking and hybrid parking that’s better than the handicapped parking! And the carts are shallow, so you don’t have to bend your fat pregnant ass as much to load and unload your cart.
Well, maybe that’s a little specific to me, but you get my point.
Fresh and Easy is getting a lot of static because it isn’t unionized. As far as I’m aware, neither is Trader Joe’s, but Trader Joe’s doesn’t have moving billboards out in front of it protesting the lack of unions.
So Fresh and Easy is my regular Saturday date. I recommend a trip to one if you live here.