Package Design | packagedesignmag.com

(February 2011) posted on Tue Mar 08, 2011

By Ron Romanik

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Tesco’s design brief for its Fresh & Easy stores in the U.S. was an immense, all-encompassing directive that boiled down to this: Yes, we’re the third largest retailer in the world behind Wal-Mart and Carrefour. But forget everything we’ve done before. This has to be different.
The Fresh & Easy concept is small-format stores in local neighborhoods that feature fresh products from local suppliers whenever possible. And every component of the brand, including package design, had to be built and created from the ground up. For the design of Fresh & Easy’s own-brand grocery products, Tesco turned to London-based design consultancy P&W, with which the grocery giant had worked for 20 years.
Fresh & Easy launched its first stores in California in 2007 with bold expansion plans. After a modest start, the brand has grown to more than 160 outlets across the western U.S. P&W has designed the Fresh & Easy own-brand, private-label packaging since the beginning, and in 2010, it again debuted a number of product lines. Faced with a uniquely changed consumer—the pre- and post-recession shopper—P&W paid close attention to what would be most appealing to Americans’ new mindset. Let’s take a look at three of these lines and dive into how, and why, the packages work.