Tesco today announced plans to launch a loyalty card in the US.

The card will initially be available at seven stores in California. If the pilot is successful, the scheme could be rolled out across the whole chain by February.

Whether it comes to represent a final throw of the dice or a genuine turning point for the loss-making US business, we’ll have to wait and see.

“Clubcard has always been, from the very first day we launched it, the icing on the cake, not the cake itself,” said Fresh & Easy boss Tim Mason. “You have to have an established business that is delivering every day for customers before introducing it.”

With sales growing at double-digit rates, albeit without yet translating into profitability, that time has now apparently come.

Mason told the Financial Times the move didn’t mark a U-turn by the retailer. It may, however, come to take the place the coupons (so beloved of American shoppers) that Fresh & Easy has relied on to help drive its impressive recent sales growth.

Certainly the name, Friends of Fresh & Easy, isn’t as catchy as the UK original. But Tesco already has 360,000 ‘friends’ signed up for fortnightly emails about special offers.

If Tesco can replicate in the US just a fraction of the success it had over here with Clubcard during the 1990s, the new scheme may come to be seen as an important staging post on the road to profitability.

And that would earn the oft-criticised Mason a few more loyal friends on this side of the Atlantic too.

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