EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- Tesco, the British parent of the 130-store, convenience/grocery chain Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Inc., said Tuesday that its American division would lose about $259 million this year, or about $2 million for each of its stores. Fresh & Easy is struggling with the overhead of a large infrastructure designed to support hundreds of stores and a price war that has broken out in the supermarket industry.

There are 70 stores now open in Southern California, which has been hurt more than other regions by the recession. Fresh & Easy also opened stores in other areas with poor economies, including Phoenix and Las Vegas.

ROCKLAND, Mass. -- Tedeschi Food Shops, a 188-location convenience store chain in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut, will install NCR's Blockbuster Express-branded DVD-rental kiosks in all of its stores. Blockbuster Express is currently available in 89 Tedeschi Food Shop locations. By the end of October, it expects to deploy kiosks at 27 additional locations. It will install the units in the remainder of the Tedeschi chain by the end of 2009.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Smoker Friendly International has signed Tri Star Energy's Daily's convenience stores in Nashville, Tenn., as an authorized dealer. Daily's will co-brand with Smoker Friendly in the tobacco category. It will be the exclusive retailer for SF/Smoker Friendly private-label tobacco products in its 104-store chain, which operates in Tennessee and Kentucky.