EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Los Angeles resident Josephine Close has won Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market’s first-ever Design-A-Bag Contest, the company announced Tuesday.

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Her design, chosen by customers through an email program, will be featured on a reusable bag available in stores by the end of the year. She will receive a year’s worth of free groceries valued at $5,000.

The Tesco banner’s Design-A-Bag contest generated more than 1,300 submissions through its website, www.freshandeasy.com/designabag. The top eight designs became finalists and were chosen based on originality and creativity. Customers cast nearly 24,000 votes.

“I was absolutely thrilled when I found out that I won the bag design contest and want to thank Fresh & Easy’s customers for voting for my design,” said Josephine Close. “I wanted to create a piece of art vs. another bag with a lot of branding. Instead of drawing fruits and vegetables, I used their naturally occurring colors to represent them in what I thought was a very abstract and unique way.”

“We want to offer reusable bags that people really want to use, so it made sense to enlist the creativity of our customers to help design them,” said Roberto Munoz, Fresh & Easy director of neighborhood affairs. “We’re happy so many customers voted for their favorite design and look forward to introducing Josephine’s reusable bag into our range later this year.”

Fresh & Easy currently offers many reusable bag options, including one for 99 cents.