Tesco has halted the roll-out of its US convenience store chain Fresh & Easy, fuelling renewed speculation about its performance on the West Coast, according to The Sunday Telegraph.

The UK's biggest grocer is to pause its roll-out of the Fresh & Easy format in the US for three months while it reviews the performance of the fledgling business. Tesco has opened nearly 60 stores since November.

In a blog on Tesco’s web site, Fresh & Easy marketing director Simon Uwins said: "We've given ourselves a little bit of time to kick the tyres, smooth out any wrinkles and make some improvements that customers have asked for.”

He added: “Improving the operation and the shopping trip is what we do every day… but the next three months will allow us to accelerate this process before we restart what’s been described as an opening programme on steroids.” Uwins stressed that the roll-out of new Fresh & Easy stores would resume in three months, following the review.

The revelation comes two weeks after Piper Jaffray analyst Mike Dennis claimed that Fresh & Easy had fallen behind on internal targets. He claimed that first-half sales at Fresh & Easy could be as low as US$30 million (£15.1 million), compared with the US$100 million (£50.4 million) the broker expected. “The issue is very weak footfall,” said Dennis in a research note titled Miles Off Target.

After the report, Fresh & Easy chief executive Tim Mason said sales and customer numbers were growing every week.

Jeff Adams, the US-born chief executive of Tesco’s Lotus business in Thailand, is relocating to the US to become number two to Tim Mason.

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