Wal-Mart will open small-format grocery stores in Arizona this year under the trade name, “Marketside”, going head to head with the new Fresh & Easy markets being rolled out in the US by Tesco, the UK grocer.

The new pilot stores are about 15,000 sq ft, a 10th of the size of the Supercenters that have been driving Wal-Mart’s growth over the past two decades.