The Austin-based company posted net income of $20.1 million, 34 cents per share, on sales of $780.8 million in the quarter ending Jan. 20. That compares to net income of $15 million, 27 cents a share, on sales of $643.4 million in the quarter ending Jan. 14, 2000.
The company said sales growth came from 16% year after year of growth and better-than-expected comparable store sales of 9.4%. "New stores produced average weekly sales of $380,000 and our comparable store sales increases continue to be the highest for public supermarket companies and among the highest in retail," CEO John Mackey said in announcing the financial results.
In the first quarter, Whole Foods acquired three stores, opened a store in Maryland, relocated a 14,000-sf store in Northridge, CA to a new 28,000-sf location and closed two stores. In the current quarter, the company has opened a store in Kansas City, MO and plans to open stores in Denver and Portland, OR. It also signed a lease for a new store in Madison, NJ.
Whole Foods plans to open three to five stores per quarter in the second half of the year. It said about 25% of those stores would be in new markets including Toronto, Pittsburgh, Albuquerque and Las Vegas.
Jim Sud, vice president of growth and business development, said in a call with analysts that the process of opening new stores is going well. It has 20 stores in the pipeline, each averaging 36,000 sf. A.C. Gallo, executive vice president of operations, said the company was studying operations at the Harry's Markets it acquired last year. "We may put a good number of those ideas into other stores," he said.
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