Fresh & Easy has expanded its assortment adding 1,000 SKUs over the summer, including additions to its refrigerated and frozen food line up, as part of an effort to better meet its customers' everyday shopping needs.

While the Tesco-owned retailer did edit some products from the assortment in that time frame, the addition of new fixtures attests to the overall item expansion that took place, and company spokesman Brendan Wonnacott told RFFR that Fresh & Easy has increased its store SKU count to 4,700.

The expansion effort included the installation of new coffin case freezers that mount sliding doors to help keep energy costs down. Fresh & Easy has been building stores with green components and retrofitting existing facilities it has entered with environmentally friendly elements such as sky lights. It also has signed on with the Green Building Council to help in development of the Volume Certification Program, one that is establishing standards for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design acknowledgment that can be applied to multiple facilities based on the set guidelines. Until then, GBC will continue to certify stores one at a time, and Fresh & Easy just won its first store LEED certification earning a gold-level acknowledgment for its Cathedral City, Calif., unit.

It has been a busy summer for Fresh & Easy. The chain also has added a Spanish-language version of its web site. The addition comes fast on the heels of a main site redesign initiated to make navigation easier and to better feature the chain's core marketing messages regarding quality, assortment, customer service and price – which includes taking a dig at Whole Foods in the form of a declaration: “Wholesome food, not whole paycheck” – while providing more prominent links to the company’s extensive social networking effort on Blogger.com, Twitter, flickr and YouTube.