ASDA, Britain’s second-biggest grocer, has announced plans for an aggressive new opening programme over coming years with a mixture of smaller format and larger stores.

However, the company, which is owned by US grocery giant Wal Mart, has denied reports that it is set to open around 100 convenience stores by 2015.

The company said it was committed to opening at least 10 stores this year, comprising three smaller shops and seven larger supermarkets, and would continue its expansion plans in subsequent years as aggressively as the market permitted.

However, Asda chief executive Andy Bond stressed that the smaller shops would not be convenience stores, which tend to be less than 5,000 square feet in size and focussed on a limited number of products.

Instead, its smaller format stores would be about 8,000 to 10,000 square feet, would contain enough products for consumers to do a full weekly shop and would sell goods at the same price as the group’s larger supermarkets.

Asked to give a precise figure for the number of new stores it planned to open this year, he added: "I’m aggressive, and we’ll build stores as quickly as we can. We’re out there looking for more stores, so the absolute minimum we’ll open is 10."

He added that the plans for 2010 were not a guide. "It takes a while to build a pipeline. You don’t want to extrapolate 10 and assume it’s five times ten over five years. The number could be substantially bigger than that."