Dunnhumby in Talks With Fresh & Easy

MICHAEL GARRY

NEW YORK — Dunnhumby, the U.K. loyalty marketing firm in which Tesco has an ownership stake, is having “discussions” with Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, El Segundo, Calif., about working with the chain, Edwina Dunn, chief executive of Dunnhumby, told SN last week.

Fresh & Easy, Tesco's small-format food outlet, has avoided using loyalty cards or marketing since launching stores in the Western U.S., despite Dunnhumby's extensive work on loyalty marketing with Tesco in the U.K. The Financial Times recently reported that Fresh & Easy has a new loyalty program in the works, which a Fresh & Easy spokesman denied.

“We may work with Fresh & Easy, possibly on loyalty,” Dunn said in an interview with SN at the National Retail Federation's 99th Annual Convention & Expo here. “I couldn't commit to whether it would be on a loyalty program or not — that's confidential.”

Dunnhumby is able to work with retail POS data that is not associated with a loyalty card program, she noted. In the U.S., Dunnhumby has a 50/50 partnership with Cincinnati-based Kroger, with which it collaborates on a loyalty program.

“If we were to become involved with Fresh & Easy, we would make sure that Kroger was entirely comfortable with what we did and how we did it,” Dunn said.