Wal-Mart, the largest US retailer, has said it will open its first new Marketside small grocery stores in the autumn, with four stores in the Phoenix area that will be competing directly with the Tesco’s fledgling Fresh & Easy chain.

On a new website launched to promote the new brand, the retailer for the first time confirmed the four first locations identified by the FT earlier this year, all of them in neighbourhoods where Tesco is siting its 10,000 sq ft Fresh & Easy local markets.