SpartanNash Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
May 30, 2024

Key Takeaways

  • Supply chain, merchandising and go-to-market transformations delivered strong margin benefits, expanding wholesale operating margin by 53 bps and overall EBITDA margin while positioning to achieve $125 M–$150 M gross savings a year early.
  • Generated over $36 M in operating cash, returned nearly $11 M to shareholders via buybacks and dividends, and reaffirmed full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance of $255 M–$270 M and EPS of $1.85–$2.10 despite a modest net sales revision.
  • Wholesale net sales declined 3.4% year-over-year, driven by a 4.5% headwind from reduced Amazon volume, though growth in national accounts and a 2% increase in military sales provided partial offset.
  • Retail net sales fell 3.6% and comparable store sales dropped 2.5%, adversely affected by lapping higher EBT benefits and milder winter weather, while fuel sales decreased 10%.
  • Private label strength continued with unit penetration up 50 bps and the new Finest Reserve premium center-store line receiving positive feedback in initial store rollouts.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
SpartanNash Q1 2024
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

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Operator

Welcome to the SpartanNash First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. I would like to now turn the call over to Doug Cooper from Rose & Company, who is assisting while Kayleigh Campbell, SpartanNash's Head of Investor Relations, is out on maternity leave. Doug?

Doug Cooper
Doug Cooper
Equity Research Analyst at SpartanNash

Thank you, and good morning. On the call today from the company is President and Chief Executive Officer, Tony Sarsam, and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Jason Monaco. By now, everyone should have access to the earnings release, which was issued this morning at approximately 7 A.M. Eastern Time. For a copy of the earnings release, as well as the company's supplemental earnings presentation, please visit SpartanNash's website at www.spartannash.com/investors. This call is being recorded, and a replay will be available on the company's website. Before we begin, the company would like to remind you that today's discussion will include a number of forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements.

Doug Cooper
Doug Cooper
Equity Research Analyst at SpartanNash

If you will refer to SpartanNash's earnings release from this morning, as well as the company's most recent SEC filings, you will see a discussion of factors that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Please remember that all forward-looking statements made today reflect our current expectations only, and SpartanNash undertakes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements. The company will make a number of references to non-GAAP financial measures. The company believes these measures provide investors with useful perspective on the underlying growth trends of the business. It has included in the earnings release a full reconciliation of certain non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures, which can be found on SpartanNash's website at www.spartannash.com/investors. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Tony.

Tony Sarsam
Tony Sarsam
President and CEO at SpartanNash

Thank you, Doug, and good morning, everyone. Glad to be here. In recognition of Memorial Day earlier this week, I'd like to start by giving thanks to the families of service members who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our country. At SpartanNash, we have the privilege of serving our military heroes by providing them with a taste of home at commissaries and exchanges around the world. Memorial Day also brings a significant holiday surge for our stores and for our independent grocery customers. Thank you to the associates who kept the shelves stocked this past weekend. Shifting gears to other recent events, I'd also like to welcome the nearly 500 associates from Metcalfe's Market to the SpartanNash family. Metcalfe's Market is the acquisition that we announced in mid-April. It is a 3-store, fourth-generation, family-owned chain that strengthens our retail footprint in Wisconsin.

Tony Sarsam
Tony Sarsam
President and CEO at SpartanNash

The Metcalfe's banner is known for delivering a high level of service, premium quality foods, and a focus on local products. As a people-first company, we are proud to welcome these associates and expand their benefits and career pathing opportunities here at SpartanNash. Whether it's adding new stores, navigating industry changes, or optimizing our network, I know we have the best team in the business to meet today's challenges. It's thanks to the ingenuity and dedication of our associates that today I can report that we increased EBITDA margin in the first quarter. While the grocery industry is experiencing declining volumes, SpartanNash continues to prove that we can deliver despite the challenging market dynamics.

Tony Sarsam
Tony Sarsam
President and CEO at SpartanNash

In fact, we remain on target to reach the $125 million-$150 million of gross benefits set out in our strategic plan by the end of 2024, a year earlier than initially communicated. This is evidence that our investments in our supply chain and merchandising transformations are paying off. As for the merchandising transformation, we continue to see the impact in the bottom line. From enhanced category planning that drives sales and margin, better vendor engagement and programs that work for the customers, and leveraging AI-powered software to optimize pricing, we realized $7 million in incremental merchandising transformation benefits compared to the prior year. We're creating a compelling offer at the shelves within our retail stores and with our wholesale customers, using loyalty and analytics to curate assortment that truly connects with communities.

Tony Sarsam
Tony Sarsam
President and CEO at SpartanNash

Building our customer value proposition keeps us well-positioned to continue to win customers and to improve profitability as the tide of inflation retreats. On the supply chain side, we lowered our costs while continuing to optimize our network, reducing our wholesale segment's operating expenses by more than 4%. Collectively, our transformation initiatives contributed to our stronger wholesale results for this quarter, where we expanded reported operating margin by 53 basis points and EBITDA margin by 10 basis points, despite wholesale revenue decreasing by $71.6 million. In addition to wholesale revenue, I want to provide more color on this quarter's results. Total wholesale sales decreased by 3.4% to prior year due to lower Amazon volume, which represented a 4.5% headwind within the segment. Despite that challenge, we remain encouraged by growth within our national accounts that partially offset the Amazon impact.

Tony Sarsam
Tony Sarsam
President and CEO at SpartanNash

We continue to enhance our service model and accelerate our market expansion opportunities in close proximity to our entire network of distribution centers. Further, our military business saw a more than 2% increase over the prior year. To wrap up wholesale revenue, I wanted to circle back to Amazon. This past quarter, we extended our supply agreement with Amazon, and we look forward to continuing to support them into the future. While overall volume among shoppers trended downward, we're continuing to see our private label brands outperform national brands. In fact, unit penetration for own brands was up by 50 basis points versus Q1 2023. Fresh & Finest by Our Family, our premium offering in our fresh departments, is now the number two brand in our retail portfolio, second only to Our Family, our mainstream core brand.

Tony Sarsam
Tony Sarsam
President and CEO at SpartanNash

In Q4 of 2023, we launched Finest Reserve by Our Family, a premium center store offering. In Q1, performance exceeded expectations in both wholesale and retail. We are seeing a strong repurchase rate from consumers in our retail stores, who share positive feedback on the quality and the value of this line. We've kicked off seven store remodels, and four of them will be completed in June. We're excited to also be revamping two of our Family Fare stores with a strengthened customer value proposition that could soon extend to additional locations. In summary, we couldn't have accomplished any of these results, especially given the headwinds we faced, without highly dedicated people. I'm proud of the work we have done to find growth opportunities, achieve our profitability goals, and I'm optimistic about our team's ability to continue driving results.

Tony Sarsam
Tony Sarsam
President and CEO at SpartanNash

All right, I'll now turn the call over to Jason, who'll walk you through the quarterly financials in greater detail.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

Thanks, Tony, and welcome to everyone joining us on today's call. I want to highlight some of our key successes from this past quarter before jumping into the detailed results. These highlights include, 1, expanding net margin by 7 basis points. 2, expanding our adjusted EBITDA margin by 3 basis points. 3, generating more than $36 million of cash from operating activities. 4, returning nearly $11 million to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. 5, maintaining strong liquidity, giving us flexibility to support our long-term strategic plan that includes both organic and inorganic investments. Now, turning to our quarterly results. Net sales in the quarter decreased 3.5% to $2.81 billion versus first quarter 2023 sales of $2.91 billion.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

The decline versus the prior year period was due to decreased unit volume in the wholesale and retail segments, in line with changes in the market. Additionally, within our wholesale segment, we are continuing to lap higher Amazon volume from prior year. Gross profit for the first quarter was $440 million, or 15.7% of net sales, compared to $447 million, or 15.4% of net sales, in the prior year's first quarter. Our gross profit dollars were down slightly due to the lower volume I mentioned, while the rate increase was driven by reduced LIFO expense and benefits realized from the merchandising transformation initiative. The higher gross profit rate was partially offset by changes in customer mix within our wholesale segment and reduced inflation-related price change benefits in the current year.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

As a percent of sales, our reported operating expenses increased seven basis points from prior year. The increase in selling, general, and administrative expenses as a rate of sales was driven by investments in the first half of the year as we continued to build on our transformational initiatives, which I'll expand on more later. Higher depreciation and amortization expense and increased restructuring and asset impairment charges also led to higher SG&A expenses in the current quarter. These increases were, however, largely offset by benefits realized from both the merchandising transformation and recent go-to-market strategy initiatives and lower incentive compensation. Interest expense increased $1.9 million compared to the prior year quarter to $13.5 million.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

Consolidated net earnings increased by $1.6 million compared to the prior year quarter to $13 million, or $0.37 per diluted share, compared to $0.32 a year ago. On an adjusted basis, net earnings decreased to $4.4 million compared to the prior year, to $18.5 million, or $0.53 per diluted share, compared to $0.64 last year. Adjusted EBITDA decreased by $1.8 million compared to the prior year quarter to $74.9 million. However, we saw an expansion in adjusted EBITDA margin of 3 basis points, even while continuing to invest in our transformational initiatives. Now, turning to our segments. Net sales in wholesale decreased $72 million or 3.4% to $2 billion compared to the prior year quarter.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

While the Amazon business reduced segment sales by 4.5%, we are excited by the growth we're driving in other national accounts and the military. Wholesale Adjusted EBITDA was $57.6 million, slightly ahead of last year's $57.5 million. The improved results were driven by benefits from the merchandising transformation initiative, savings from changes in our go-to-market strategy, and lower incentive compensation, which more than offset the sales declines. Wholesale reported first quarter operating earnings were $36 million, compared to $26.3 million in the prior year's first quarter, which, in addition to the drivers mentioned earlier, also benefited from lower LIFO expense of $7.2 million. Now, moving to the retail segment.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

Sales came in at $792 million for the quarter, compared to $822 million in the first quarter of 2023, a decline of 3.6%. Our comparable store sales declined 2.5% for the first quarter. Similar to the last few quarters, we're continuing to cycle higher EBT benefits from the prior year period, which adversely impacted same-store sales by approximately 1.9% this quarter. We're pleased that growth held firm despite EBT and other market challenges. In addition, our fuel sales were down $5.3 million, or 10% compared to the prior year quarter. Retail Adjusted EBITDA was $17.3 million, compared to $19.3 million in the prior year's quarter.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

The decrease compared to the prior year was due to both lower volume and increased investments in the first half of the year related to transformational initiatives. Retail reported a GAAP operating loss of $5.4 million to a loss of $2 million in the first quarter of 2023. As a reminder, the reported GAAP operating losses include restructuring and asset impairment charges in both the current and prior year. Turning to our balance sheet. Our leverage ratio of net long-term debt to adjusted EBITDA increased sequentially in the first quarter by 10 basis points to 2.4 times, and cash flows from operations in the quarter improved by $39.2 million compared to the prior year quarter.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

As reported in our earnings release, we reaffirmed our full-year adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS guidance based on our operating performance to date and our positive outlook from the benefits we continue to realize from our transformational initiatives. We still expect that our adjusted EBITDA will be in the range of $255 million-$270 million, and we continue to expect adjusted EPS to be in the range of $1.85-$2.10 per share. Circling back to the investments I mentioned earlier related to transformational initiatives, I wanted to provide you with a little more color about how they will impact the flow of our profitability this year.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

We're currently investing in the next phases of our transformational journey, which focus on optimizing our non-product procurement processes and reducing product waste within both our distribution centers and retail stores. While this will require investments during the second quarter, we expect these initiatives will deliver benefits by the end of the year. Shifting to our sales guidance. Earlier today, we slightly lowered our full-year net sales guidance range by $200 million to $9.5 billion-$9.7 billion. While this revision represents refreshed estimates based on our observations of the overall market, as well as our own business, including declines in Amazon, we are encouraged by the growth potential of the rest of our wholesale business. Moving to the bottom line, we remain confident in our ability to achieve our original profitability goals.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

With that, I'd like to turn the call back over to Tony.

Tony Sarsam
Tony Sarsam
President and CEO at SpartanNash

Thank you, Jason. In addition to creating solutions, our associates are dedicated to serving. We're looking forward to an epic day of volunteering on our annual Helping Hands Day next month. In partnership with Convoy of Hope, our team here in Grand Rapids will be preparing boxes containing nearly 500,000 meals to help those affected by disasters. Some of our generous suppliers donated nearly $1 million worth of products to support our efforts. I want to thank them and the 700 volunteers who will be participating. Before we close, I'd like to take a moment to thank and congratulate our retiring board members, Bill Voss and General Peet Proctor. Throughout their years of service, they have provided valuable guidance and support to the company, including through the merger of Spartan Stores and Nash Finch in 2013.

Tony Sarsam
Tony Sarsam
President and CEO at SpartanNash

We appreciate their contributions to SpartanNash and wish them our very best in their future endeavors. Finally, I'm delighted to welcome our 106 college students who are interning at SpartanNash this summer. This year's intern class represents 40 universities from across the country. Our internship program is a key component of our people-first culture and our strategy to recruit and develop top talent. It's going to be a terrific summer. With that, I'd like to turn the call back over to the operator and open it up for your questions.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the number one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by the number two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any key. Our first question comes from the line of Chuck Cerankosky from Northcoast Research. Go ahead, please.

Chuck Cerankosky
Chuck Cerankosky
Managing Director and Principal at Northcoast Research

Good morning, everyone. If I'm looking at the Amazon business, how does it affect the gross profit margin in percentage terms? Does the margin go up as the revenues drop and vice versa, while the absolute dollars, of course, go up as business recovers there?

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

... Hey, Chuck, this is Jason. Thanks for the question, and good morning. Our Amazon business, of course, helps us build scale and what it does from a margin standpoint, because we don't disclose the margin by customer, but the way to think about it is that, typically our larger customers will have a lower margin profile, and our smaller customers will have a larger profile. So with this customer in particular, what we do is we work together to optimize the end-to-end supply chain between ourselves and them, and in doing so, taking cost out of the system. But to do that, what that does is it builds scale for us, and it helps build a framework out where we can both make money along the way.

Chuck Cerankosky
Chuck Cerankosky
Managing Director and Principal at Northcoast Research

Okay. But I wasn't trying to get at the margin. I'm just... does the margin decline as the business scales, so that the more business they do with you, the gross profit dollars increase, but the margin goes down? And then, secondly, could you give us your inflation outlook for the next 12 months?

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

Sure. So know that—I guess to answer the first question, no, it's not scaled in that way from a margin standpoint, as the business grows or shrinks. What we wanna do is make sure we've got a sustainable business with, with all of our customers, whether they're big or small, and represents the cost of doing business with each, with each of those customers. From an inflation standpoint, our outlook for the year reflects low single-digit inflation. It reflected that outlook when we said it a quarter ago, and nothing's changed on that front.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

We finished the first quarter, maybe for some perspective, with about 2% inflation in both our wholesale and retail businesses, and notably, we've seen a kind of a much more muted view of inflation across the portfolio of products that we carry, and that ramp down is coming in as about we expected.

Chuck Cerankosky
Chuck Cerankosky
Managing Director and Principal at Northcoast Research

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Alex Slagle from Jefferies. Go ahead, please.

Alexander Slagle
Alexander Slagle
Equity Research Analyst at Jefferies

Thanks. Good morning. Wanted to ask on the guidance and just sort of reconcile some things with the sales being tougher and that guidance coming down, but then reiterating the EBITDA and EPS. So, is there some degree of upside you're seeing just from the cost-saving initiatives already, or are there external dynamics that make the profitability picture look a bit easier than you previously expected?

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

Yeah, good morning. Maybe the way to characterize this is that we feel really good about the way that we're executing against our gross margin expansion programs. If you think about our long-term strategic plan, one of the real bedrock elements of that was operational excellence and delivering against that operational excellence, which drives both gross margin and operating expense improvements through our P&L. What we're doing is really building on that momentum that we've achieved thus far. We've delivered our gross savings benefits or expect to deliver our gross savings benefits a year early, recognizing that we've got headwinds in the marketplace.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

But we're kind of doubling down on that and investing further right now in indirect procurement and in waste because of the confidence we've built around executing thus far. So I wouldn't characterize it as it's easier than we thought, but rather that we're investing to continue driving performance in a space where we're building muscle organizationally, and we've had success delivering, and we expect to continue going forward.

Alexander Slagle
Alexander Slagle
Equity Research Analyst at Jefferies

Okay. And on the, the $50 million-$60 million in strategic margin enhancing initiatives, have you given out sort of what the split might look like between supply chain, merchandising, go-to-market? And, I mean, it did seem like, you know, you called out the merchandising initiatives in the press release and, and earlier just as a key profitability driver. And maybe, you know, if you could comment on this, if there's, like, an acceleration there or just more significant magnitude of benefit, or is it really just falling in line with your initial plan?

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

Sure. So we didn't give the splits, but maybe for some color of the three programs, what we talked about was... Maybe I'll break these down a little bit. The go-to-market, what we said a couple of quarters ago when we launched that program was that we expected a run rate of about $20 million of benefit by the end of 2023, and we've achieved that benefit. And that's, yeah, that's part of the $50 million-$60 million that you mentioned before. Of the remainder, it's probably a little more heavily weighted on merchandising transformation, just because we're earlier in that program. Our supply chain transformation began in 2021, merchandising in 2022, and launched in 2023.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

It's more the kind of journey that each of those programs is on, but all three of those play a significant role and are a substantial portion of the savings.

Alexander Slagle
Alexander Slagle
Equity Research Analyst at Jefferies

Great. Thanks very much.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Wolf, from CL King. Go ahead, please.

Andrew Wolf
Andrew Wolf
Senior Equity Analyst at CL King

Thanks. Good morning. Wanted to ask about the investing this quarter in the indirect procurement and waste. You know, I assume that's a signal that, you know, the profitability will be impacted by that meaningfully enough in the quarter that you called it out, and then the benefits will come later. Just sort of wanted to reconfirm that, but also the question fundamentally is, you know, are these the process of generating savings in direct procurement is pretty much analogous to the same processes or similar enough to, you know, for sale procurement, that, you know, it's highly visible. That, you know, whatever you got budgeted, and you feel, you know, that it's kind of the same process, just to the non-saleable side of the business.

Tony Sarsam
Tony Sarsam
President and CEO at SpartanNash

Yeah, thanks, Andrew. This is Tony. Yeah, you're correct about the investment and the split. We will be investing, particularly in the first and second quarter of this year, and we'll have benefits coming in the second half of the year and into next year for those investments in those programs you mentioned. And the indirect procurements, it's slightly different, because it's a little different relationship and the things that we purchase and procure to run our business, as opposed to the ongoing supplies and the cogs of business. So it's a little bit different process. It doesn't involve the same merchant, right? Because it's a little bit different, a different approach overall.

Tony Sarsam
Tony Sarsam
President and CEO at SpartanNash

And there's terrific opportunity for us to, like, kind of think through that and look for those opportunities, both in that and the waste program. There's always opportunity to sharpen your saw on those components, and we're excited about the work we're doing there. So that'll be an ongoing process this year, but as I mentioned, a big investment first half of the year, sort of benefits the second half of the year.

Andrew Wolf
Andrew Wolf
Senior Equity Analyst at CL King

Is the indirect procurement more weighted towards retail into disposables and things like that? Or is it more weighted to maybe the wholesale side, you know, which I think would be more like semi-heavy equipment perhaps, or pallets or what have you?

Tony Sarsam
Tony Sarsam
President and CEO at SpartanNash

I mean, it roughly follows the splits of our business because these are things that we buy for the entire business, so it'll impact it roughly linearly.

Andrew Wolf
Andrew Wolf
Senior Equity Analyst at CL King

Got it. Could you just elaborate a little on waste reduction processes? You know, it's a pretty wide swath. It could be anything from, you know, less spoilage in retail and wholesale, or is it something, you know, more? Is it a lot different than, you know, typical shrink reduction?

Tony Sarsam
Tony Sarsam
President and CEO at SpartanNash

Yeah, this process is mostly about the entirety of shrink, and it includes the entire supply chain. So looking at everything from original contact with how we buy through our supply chain into our retail stores and pulling a thread through all that. So it's a very comprehensive view, but it is largely about waste that occurs from shrink type of activities.

Andrew Wolf
Andrew Wolf
Senior Equity Analyst at CL King

Got it. That's helpful. On the vendor engagement, where you know $7 million of savings, but also, I think you mentioned, you know, pricing using AI software to help you, you know, be sharper on where you increase prices, I assume. You know, could you, could you talk about where that is happening? Is that... If it's you know, if you're getting sharper on prices and it's not, you know, you're getting better with your elasticity estimates, let's say, is that something you're doing more at wholesale at the retail stores? Or is that something you, you know, for wholesale customers? I ask, you know, at the retail stores, you can probably get pretty quick understanding of whether your estimates were right by, you know, by the velocities you get.

Andrew Wolf
Andrew Wolf
Senior Equity Analyst at CL King

But, you know, on wholesale, you know, if you're raising prices, based on, you know, some algorithms and so on, how do you get feedback on that?

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

Yeah, Andrew, great question. This is retail only, that that was referred to there, and maybe a little bit of color. We shape our customer perception based on key value items, or KVIs, as many retailers describe them. And we recognize that that perception of competitive pricing and fair pricing is a really important part of going to market in this space, and we use it as a tool to develop our strategy.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

So from our standpoint, what we're doing is to kind of build a little more granularity, is we take a look at the competition weekly, we understand what the market looks like, and we leverage things like you described, price elasticity, competitive understanding and analytics to ensure that we're giving consumers the very best solution, and in a way that meets them where their pocketbook is and meets them where they are in the consumer journey.

Andrew Wolf
Andrew Wolf
Senior Equity Analyst at CL King

Okay. So I guess the flip side of my example of raising prices is you might lower prices where elasticity is quite strong, and that's good for the consumer and, you know, perhaps good for your, the item or the category because, you know, the velocity would go up. Is that, am I thinking about this right?

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

Yeah.

Andrew Wolf
Andrew Wolf
Senior Equity Analyst at CL King

Just... Okay.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

Yeah, you should think about it more as an optimization, and that there may be instances where prices go up or down, but they reflect the market realities, the supply and demand on the back end-

Andrew Wolf
Andrew Wolf
Senior Equity Analyst at CL King

Yeah

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

... And what consumer demand looks like on each of those products. But we think about it from the standpoint of not just the micro but the macro. As we develop that strategy, we know that perception of competitive pricing is a really important driver in store choice and retail, and consumers are really looking for value in today's marketplace. And what we're looking to do is ensure that that strategy meets, kind of, that thread runs top to bottom, both from being competitively priced strategically all the way through to executing it at the shelf, and to optimize the best price point for consumers to drive the right demand profile.

Andrew Wolf
Andrew Wolf
Senior Equity Analyst at CL King

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Ben Wood, from BMO Capital Markets. Go ahead, please.

Benjamin Wood
Benjamin Wood
Vice President of Equity Research at BMO Capital Markets

Good morning. Thank you for taking our questions. I just wanted to touch more broadly, can you talk us through how volume trended during the quarter or maybe quarter to date, and then what you're seeing on the promotional and competitive environment? Seems like major grocers and major customers are announcing price investments. So any change to what you're seeing there and you know any impact to your outlook for the rest of the year?

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

Yeah. Good morning, Ben. Great, great question. And maybe shed a little light on some of the dynamics within the quarter that were at play here. When you think about the comp situation, comps finished the quarter about, they were down about 2.5%. We've talked in the past about the wind down of EBT, the SNAP programs. That had an impact, an adverse impact of 1.9% on our comps. And I think we've talked before about the timing, particularly in Michigan, with the unwind of what were pretty heavy SNAP benefits at the that ended in March 2023. So we've been lapping that.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

So from an intra-quarter phasing standpoint, as SNAP benefit lapping ended in March, we saw an improvement in comps as we kind of exited the quarter. Now, the other overlay here is weather, and I probably don't need to remind you all, our stores are in the upper Midwest. We live in the snow, in the snow belt, but this winter didn't have, didn't have the same snowfall that we've had in the past. In fact, we had quite a dry and relatively warm winter. And snowfall drives, drives retail revenue in our business. So roughly speaking, it's, you know, it's not perfectly scientific, but roughly speaking, the impact of weather this quarter was probably about a one point, maybe a little more than one point, drag on our comp.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

So you kind of have. You've got the EBT drag of 1.9 and the snow of 1. And the reason I share that is that gives a little bit of color on the phasing within the quarter and when you're trying to get to what the steady state comp looks like. So our outlook for the year isn't really changed from the standpoint of what our programs and initiatives looks like. But we also recognize we've got externalities at play, whether it, you know, whether it be weather. Obviously, we're clear that past that this winter, but whether it's weather or government supplemental programs. Looking forward, still obviously a challenging retail environment. We talked about pricing and price optimization, and what we're doing is making sure we meet consumers where they're at.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

But what I mean when I say that is not just pricing and promotion, but private label. Our own brand offering improved penetration by 50 basis points this quarter, and we're very proud of the work that's been done, not just in Our Family, but in Finest Reserve that you heard Tony talk about earlier, which is off to a fantastic start. So from our standpoint, what we're trying to do is meet consumers where they're at, give them a competitively priced offering, and encourage them to make many visits to our stores and pick up as many items off the shelf as possible.

Benjamin Wood
Benjamin Wood
Vice President of Equity Research at BMO Capital Markets

Thank you. That's helpful. And just on the promotion side of that, are you seeing the step up in vendor willingness to fund this? I know you mentioned you guys were getting sharper on price, but not only at your retail, but at your wholesale. Are you seeing that retailers are needing to invest in price or is... Are vendors stepping up their contributions?

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

Yeah, that's precisely correct. And that's actually sort of linked to the work we did last year. That's all part of a broader pricing effort on our part, but we definitely had better vendor participation in this first quarter this year versus first quarter last year, and been pretty significantly so as we hit you know closer to you know overall closer to 40% versus sort of in the thirties last year on total volume that went through a promotional mechanism.

Benjamin Wood
Benjamin Wood
Vice President of Equity Research at BMO Capital Markets

How does that 30%-40% relate to pre-COVID levels? Are we back yet or still some more room to go?

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

Yeah, Ben, we're, I would say we're pretty close to pre-COVID levels. The cadences is similar. On a year-over-year basis, we're seeing a pretty stable increase. Although from a category standpoint, we're seeing some changes in where things, where and which products are promoted. So, yeah, when you kind of think about the product categories that are seeing the heaviest promotional changes, it's areas like frozen goods, and it kind of comes all the way back to the consumer there. Consumers are looking for solutions, and in an environment where their pocketbook is tight, those solutions may mean that there's a downtrade from a category standpoint, and those categories include frozen foods.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

So you may be stepping down from restaurants to prepared meals in our deli. Someone who was buying a prepared meal in our deli may be stepping down to a frozen good. And so you're seeing that change also in the categories that are being impacted.

Benjamin Wood
Benjamin Wood
Vice President of Equity Research at BMO Capital Markets

Okay, that's, that's helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder, should you have a question, please press star followed by the number one on your touchtone phone. Our next question comes from the line of Peter Saleh from BTIG. Go ahead, please.

Peter Saleh
Peter Saleh
Managing Director at BTIG

Hey, great, thanks. I appreciate the color you guys gave on the retail breakdown with weather and EBT, but can you give us a little bit more color on what you're seeing out of the pharmacy? Was there a benefit in the pharmacy from the GLP-1s? I think you guys had provided that in past quarters. Just wondering if you could give us a little bit more color on that.

Jason Monaco
Jason Monaco
EVP and CFO at SpartanNash

... Yeah, Pete, it was a tailwind of just under 1%. And so GLP-1s continue to be strong, not quite as strong as what we saw last year, but the tailwind continues, a little less of an impact than the headwind from weather.

Peter Saleh
Peter Saleh
Managing Director at BTIG

Understood. Is there anything we can glean in terms of the how those customers are performing or what they're buying within your stores? Anything to read across there, these customers that are actually buying these, these medications and, and their basket of goods?

Tony Sarsam
Tony Sarsam
President and CEO at SpartanNash

Yeah, I don't think we have thorough data on that, Pete, sorry. But we are seeing, again, as Jason mentioned, the tailwind on that, and it's, as you know, it's not a great margin story for our pharmacy overall, but it's providing that revenue lift, still.

Peter Saleh
Peter Saleh
Managing Director at BTIG

Understood. And then just lastly, on the Amazon business, which I think you mentioned was down 4.5% this quarter, is there any thoughts on how we should think about that for the balance of this year? Is that kind of a good run rate, or do you feel like that is kind of the bottom? Should we start to see an improvement on a percentage basis? Just any help on modeling that out would be helpful. Thanks.

Tony Sarsam
Tony Sarsam
President and CEO at SpartanNash

Yeah, and just to be clear, Amazon was down and caused a drag to our entire wholesale business of 4.5%. They were down by quite a bit more than that, more in the 40-ish% range. There'll be we'll see sort of negative overlaps for the duration of this year.

Peter Saleh
Peter Saleh
Managing Director at BTIG

Got it. Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. There are no other questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Tony Sarsam for closing remarks.

Tony Sarsam
Tony Sarsam
President and CEO at SpartanNash

All right, well, thank you very much, and thank you everybody for your participation on today's call. We certainly appreciate your interest in SpartanNash. And with that, from our family to yours, we'd like to wish you all a very pleasant good day.

Executives
    • Doug Cooper
      Doug Cooper
      Equity Research Analyst
    • Jason Monaco
      Jason Monaco
      EVP and CFO
    • Tony Sarsam
      Tony Sarsam
      President and CEO
Analysts
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