Fresh & Easy Chain Will Be Sold: Fate of Loma Linda Location Remains Uncertain

Fresh & Easy— the British-owned supermarket chain that has had an unopened location in Loma Linda for three years now— will be sold.

Parent company Tesco made the announcement Wednesday, and Fresh & Easy said it wouldn't close any of its existing stores.

"While we don’t yet know who our new owner will ultimately be, Tesco has already received interest from a number of parties including groups looking to purchase Fresh & Easy as an operating business," Fresh & Easy said on its Facebook page.

Fresh & Easy, which also has stores in Arden-Arcade and south Sacramento, came to the United States in 2007 and was immediately hammered by the economic recession. 

An analyst told the BBC that the stores were poorly suited to the U.S. market.

"Fresh & Easy was very confusing," International Marketing Partners' Allyson Stewart-Allen told the BBC. "You had champagne next to ready meals next to merchandising. It was a very confused proposition for Americans who couldn't work out what exactly they were."

None of its stores have turned a profit, the BBC reported.

The Los Angeles Times and NPR reported that Tesco has 5,000 employees at 200 stores around California, Nevada and Arizona. 

As for the shell of a store that sits along Redlands Boulevard and Mountain View Avenue— it's future is even less certain now.  There's no telling if and when the chain is sold, a buyer would want to keep all assets, especially those that aren't currently operational.

The planned market was supposed to have opened several years ago but remains shuttered.

"They built the store in their rapid expansion phase, in 2007 or 2008," said Konrad Bolowich, Loma Linda's economic development director, in December. "It is outfitted down to the cash registers, waiting for money to come in, and it was never opened. It was never occupied by another tenant."

However, others have expressed interest in opening businesses at that spot, which is considered a prime location, Bolowich said.

"We've had people interested in that site for other stores and we've directed them to Fresh & Easy," Bolowich said. "Their management has always told us they were intending to open that store, even after they removed the signage a year and a half ago."