A new food market concept featuring more convenience and fewer brands may be coming to Oxnard.

Fresh and Easy Neighborhood Market has applied for an alcohol license for a proposed store at the southwest corner of Gonzales Road and Rose Avenue, Winston Wright, an Oxnard city planner, said Thursday.

Fresh and Easy is part of a U.S. chain launched in November by British-based Tesco, the world's third largest retailer.

The stores are one-third to one-fourth the size of the average American supermarket and offer a combination of house and selected national brands as well as many ready-to-cook and ready-to-heat meals.

The nearly 14,000-square-foot store is one of two anchors proposed for a new 77,520-square-foot shopping center. The other anchor would be a Walgreens with a drive-through pharmacy, which would be slightly larger than the proposed Fresh and Easy.

If the city approves the plans, most stores at the center should be open by the fall of 2009, said Michael Penrod, vice-president of Parkstone Companies, a retail developer in western Ventura County.

Convenient for quick stops'

Plans for the shopping center are set to be presented at a public workshop scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday in the Oxnard community room, 300 W. Third St.

Fresh and Easy opened its first Ventura County store in Simi Valley in February and is planning another in Newbury Park later this year, said Brendan Wonnacott, the company's spokesman.

Stores in Moorpark and Oak Park also are in the works, he said. The company has 61 stores in Southern California, Las Vegas and Phoenix and has announced it would open 150 stores by the end of the year.

The stores' practices include providing samples of any non-raw food product upon request and giving large discounts on perishables that have reached a "best buy date," Wonnacott and store personnel said.

Customers interviewed outside the Simi Valley store said they liked its convenience and prices.

"I find it very convenient for quick stops, and you are not overwhelmed," said Suzanne Heetebrij, a Moorpark resident who added she dislikes large supermarkets.

Studied U.S. market

"They seemed to have everything you would need if you wanted to make a quick trip to the market," said Chris Jones, a Simi Valley resident who shopped the store for the first time on Thursday.

Jones said she was drawn in by a coupon she received in the mail offering $5 off a $20 purchase and was impressed by the prices.

On Thursday, she paid $1.84 for an albacore tuna sandwich that had been marked down because it had reached its best buy date, she said. "Two bucks for a sandwich is pretty cheap," Jones noted.

Penrod said he was approached by Tesco officials and was impressed when he visited several of the company's European markets, which vary widely in size and product lines.

"The thing that was really appealing is that they understood local demographics," he said.

Penrod said Tesco spent three years studying the U.S. market before it launched Fresh and Easy.