Wal-Mart are to launch a local neighborhood store which will pursue a “passion for fresh and delicious food”, the Financial Times reports. Inspired by Whole Foods approach, the bog-box retailer plans to prepare and serve food in the Marketside stores. The stores will include a kitchen, food counters and seating and will be about a tenth of the size of most of its 3,400 superstores. The FT says:
The world’s largest retailer – best-known for sprawling superstores with minimal service levels – says that its planned 15,000 sq ft Marketside neighbourhood stores will be “dedicated to helping our customer answer the question ‘What’s for dinner?’”… Job advertisements for the first four locations in Arizona describe Marketside as “the neighbourhood market for busy people with a taste for fresh and delicious food” – a direct challenge to the similarly sized Fresh & Easy markets being opened by Wal-Mart’s UK rival Tesco in the same communities near Phoenix.
The small format also allows Wal-Mart to expand its store footprint without risking the political opposition in the planning process that has slowed the expansion of its Supercenters in California and elsewhere.
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