Tesco Company

Fresh isn't turning out to be all that easy. With much fanfare, British retailer Tesco this fall billed its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market chain of small grocery stores as a fresher, more convenient alternative to large supermarkets when it opened its first stores in Southern California. Nearly six months later, it looks as though many shoppers aren't buying it. The chain remains optimistic but says it is suspending the opening of U.S. stores for three months.

Where's Tesco? The giant British food retailer plans to open stores in Southern California, Las Vegas and Phoenix with the potential to alter the grocery business in those markets. Yet like children hunting for the elusive figure in the "Where's Waldo?" puzzle books, some local businesses are having difficulty reaching Tesco USA President Tim Mason or his staff. The company has a U.S.

Tesco will call its new chain of grocery stores in the U.S. the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, the British retailer said. The company was eyeing sites for 300 small grocery stores in Southern California, Las Vegas and Phoenix and was prepared to spend as much as $2 billion over five years on its launch, Tesco USA Chief Executive Tim Mason said. The first stores will open this year. Each market will be 10,000 square feet, about the size of a Trader Joe's grocery store.

A new chain of mid-size grocery stores -- each about the size of a Trader Joe's -- is quietly being readied for a full-scale assault this fall on Southern California. With little fanfare so far, Tesco, Britain's largest retailer, is spending as much as $2 billion to launch Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, starting in the Southland, Las Vegas and Phoenix. Tesco, with more than $80 billion in annual sales, already operates in 13 countries and has about 370,000 employees.

In California, giant British retailer Tesco is carefully cultivating an image as a socially responsible grocer with good-paying jobs, fresh organic foods and the latest in environmentally friendly technology. But the firm's new Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market chain, due to open here this fall, is a far cry from the Tesco flagship stores in Britain, where the vast supermarkets are more like Wal-Mart in size, selection and controversy.

new york -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is hiring middle-management-level executives to help evaluate the types of stores that it operates before the arrival of British grocery Tesco to the United States. But the world's largest retailer said it would be "wrong to speculate" on what those job openings might mean for future merger-and-acquisition activity. Earlier Monday, the Financial Times had reported that the retailer was considering acquisitions in the U.S.

Not a single Fresh & Easy market has opened in Southern California, but British owner Tesco is already under pressure from community groups to live up to promises to pay decent wages, provide affordable health benefits and reduce greenhouse gases. Tesco, the world's third-largest retailer, is spending $2 billion to build hundreds of small grocery stores in Southern California and the Southwest. In launching its U.S. business, the company has boasted of green and worker-friendly practices.

Tesco, the giant British retailer that is about to open a chain of small grocery stores in Southern California, refused to say Thursday whether it would meet with a coalition of community groups concerned about the company's commitment to decent wages, affordable health benefits and greenhouse gas reduction.

Britain's largest retailer may not find much of a welcome mat Thursday when it opens its first stores in Southern California. The first six of what could become hundreds of Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets face a rocky reception in the Southland. Community organizations plan to protest the lack of stores in poor neighborhoods. A labor-oriented group says it will distribute leaflets discouraging shoppers.

Maybe Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market can compete after all. Parking lots were full and cash-register lines long at the six stores that British grocery giant Tesco opened in Southern California on Thursday. Some people showed up two hours before front doors were unlocked. In Anaheim, hecklers interrupted a ribbon-cutting ceremony. "Just open the store and let us in," one impatient shopper shouted. "We've been waiting 30 years for this."