Fresh & Easy Chain Will Be Sold: Pacifica Store to Stay Open

Fresh & Easy, the British-owned supermarket chain that opened a store in Pacifica in March 2011, 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, with Bay Area locations that include Mountain View, Pacifica, Napa, Sunnyvale, two in Hayward and three each in San Jose and San Francisco, 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. 

Fresh & Easy gave 13 schools in Pacifica $14,158 through its fifth-annual Shop for Schools fundraising program.

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