A Fresh & Easy Express, located under USC’s University Gateway apartments will hold its grand opening tomorrow.

The Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market chain, which is a subsidiary of Tesco, has 182 stores in Arizona, California and Nevada.

The new store near the Southern California campus will be an express version of the full market, which will allow the store to offer more products in a smaller location.

 “The vision of Fresh & Easy is to make fresh food accessible, so, like all our stores, this Fresh & Easy Express will carry prepackaged food that is prepared daily at our Riverside Distribution Center and delivered fresh to each store every morning,” Brendan Wonnacott, director of communications for Fresh & Easy., told the Daily Trojan.

“That way a businessman or a student on the go can pick up lunch that is prepackaged, but also fresh.”

Fresh & Easy has a reputation of being a low cost alternative to stores like Whole Foods that have healthy and organic foods at high prices.

An express version near campus will give students another option besides the typical fast food joints or dining hall food if they’re trying to be healthy.

Having a store near by might also help to influence the campuses sustainability and energy consumption. Fresh & Easy states it has made a commitment to building Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certified buildings for it’s stores. It will recycle or reuse shipping and display products and it’s food transportation trailers are hybrid electric-diesel.

The Riverside distribution center hosts California’s largest solar roof installation. Stores are equipped with LED lights in freezers, coolers and for outdoor signage. Some stores have reserved parking for hybrid cars.

On September 8, 2010, Fresh & Easy opened its first store to be GreenChill certified (Rosemead store). Fewer than 40 of all grocery stores in the USA are GreenChill certified.