LONDON – Tesco has registered a logo design for its U.S. stores with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Financial Times reports. The British supermarket’s U.S. face will be a clock face with an apple stem, signaling convenience and the stores’ planned focus on prepared meals and salads.

Later this year, Tesco will open the first small supermarkets in Arizona, California and Nevada. The new logo suggests that Tesco will not attempt to build its U.S. brand identity around its name, the newspaper reports. Tesco – the world’s fifth-largest retailer and a household name in the United Kingdom – has little brand recognition in this country.

The supermarket chain is positioning itself around the “fresh and easy” brand, which will adorn not only the storefront but also its private-label packaged goods and prepared foods. “Whatever name they chose, they would have been building a brand from scratch in the U.S.,” Darrell Rigby, senior retail partner and Bain & Company consultants, told the newspaper. “The Tesco brand really doesn't mean much to U.S. consumers.”

The logos filed with the PTO includes a version in shades of green instead of the red, white and blue associated with the Tesco name. The large, simple, lower-case font reflects simplicity, which captures part of the overall brand message, the newspaper reports.

With 15,000 square-foot stores, Tesco will open locations close to residential areas, beginning this summer around Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Diego.