Brighter displays for fresh&easy

August 19, 2011
Representing a retail food industry first, fresh&easy Neighborhood Market – US subsidiary of Tesco plc, one of the world's largest supermarket groups – began a rollout in July 2010 that saw their medium temperature cases retrofitted with LED lighting in its 159 stores.

This landmark project was made possible by the partnership of Nualight Ltd, the global specialist in LED accent lighting solutions for food retail, and Kysor/Warren, one of the top manufacturers of refrigerated cases in North America.

The key motivator for the retrofit was to improve the visual appearance of fresh&easy’s medium-temperature food displays and also to benefit from the improved energy-efficiency of Nualight’s LED lighting.

fresh&easy upgraded to Nualight’s LED lighting in their Meat, Dairy and Fish cases in order to achieve brighter and more uniformly lit displays that bring out the true vibrancy of color in fresh food produce. Nualight’s Alto and Largo LED lighting solutions replaced the incumbent T5 Fluorescent canopy and undershelf lighting.

A particular challenge for this project was the requirement for an LED lighting solution with the capacity to deliver both uniformity of light and superior vibrancy of color across the entire combined meat, poultry and fish displays, despite its wide variety of colors and textures. Working closely with Kysor/Warren, Nualight specified a 3000K color temperature, resulting in visibly brighter displays with superior vibrancy of color. Nualight’s “single bin” policy of LED selection also ensured uniformity across the entire display, a critical project deliverable.

fresh&easy promises it’s customers that “No one works harder to bring consumers the freshest, best-tasting, and safest fruits and vegetables than fresh&easy and our family of growers.” Nualight’s LED lighting visibly improved the appearance of the medium-temperature food displays, bringing the fresh&easy promise to life.

Furthermore, Nualight’s LED lighting delivered significant environmental benefits, a factor that was very important to fresh&easy. fresh&easy is already seen as a US industry leader for its environmental efforts. On average, fresh&easy stores use 30% less energy than a typical supermarket, which helps customers save money – and also helps the environment. fresh&easy offers customer recycling in every store, and uses advanced refrigeration and freezer units, and uses skylights and windows to cut back on energy usage. The company also recycles or reuses all of its display packaging.

“Nualight’s energy saving lightbars and unrivalled understanding of retail merchandising is already helping our corporation globally to reduce costs and meet its environmental objectives,” said Steve Hagen, who heads fresh&easy Procurement. “fresh&easy is delighted to build on this work and our existing relationship with Kysor/Warren.” 


“Kysor/Warren is extremely proud of our partnership with Nualight in creating this solution for our customer,” said Jim Knudsen, vice president of sales and marketing for Kysor/Warren. “It is an example of our ongoing commitment to listen, respond and deliver for our customers while providing an innovative approach to energy efficiency.”

“Nualight is obviously delighted with this fresh&easy decision, and it is a great endorsement of our strategic partnership with Kysor/Warren,” said Nualight VP Bruce Schneider, who heads the company’s operations in the US. “Our success retrofitting the Group's Tesco stores internationally led to this opportunity, and this newest assignment provides a valuable springboard for our expansion into the US market."