Wal-Mart could expand its small-format Marketside grocery chain to more than 1,000 stores, delivering annual sales of US$10 billion-plus.

The US grocer, which is due to launch the first Marketside stores this autumn, is competing head on with Tesco’s Fresh & Easy concept.

According to the Financial Times, a job ad in the US indicates the scale of the retailer’s ambition. Its first stores will open in Phoenix, Arizona this autumn.

At less than a tenth of the size of the average Wal-Mart superstore, the retailer said the Marketside stores will be aimed at “the needs of a time-starved, higher income consumer that is interested in convenience, premium fresh, and natural and organic offerings”.

Tesco has opened 60 of its Fresh & Easy stores in California, Arizona and Nevada and plans to have several hundred over the next two years.

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