Fresh & Easy has confirmed plans to close 14 more locations in the latest effort to remove underperforming stores from its roster.
Four of the closing locations will be in Orange County, CA, while the rest will be throughout San Diego, Los Angeles, Arizona and Las Vegas.
“Fresh & Easy is closing a small number of underperforming locations,” Spokesman Brendan Wonnacott told The Orange County Register. “While recent initiatives have helped drive additional sales across the Fresh & Easy business, in the case of these locations the progress was not enough to bring their performance in line with the rest of the business.”
The company has closed 55 locations in three different states earlier within 2015. When these closures were announced, Wonnacott said they would allow the company to redeploy capital into development and growth, adding that was working with ADMI, the firm behind the design of the Apple Store, to create "the Fresh & Easy store of the future." Fresh & Easy has yet to update the public on the future branding effort.
Southern California, in particular, has been an extremely competitive area for retailers in the past year or more. Fresh & Easy’s struggles have gone hand-in-hand with new chains either entering the market or adding more firepower. Just in July, Albertsons, Vons and Pavilions said they plan to hire more than 1,400 part- and full-time employees in Southern California over the next few months, including at least 300 in Orange County.
After this week’s closures, Fresh & Easy will have less than 100 locations in California, Arizona and Nevada.
