MINNEAPOLIS, MN - It's hard to shock the Wall Street crowd, but Supervalu may just have done it with its Q3 2015 financial report.

Net earnings rose to $79 million, nearly doubling the $31 million figure from Q3 2014. Add in the across-the-board sales increases for all three key business segments managed by the retailer, and the reason for the optimistic outlook shared by President & CEO Sam Duncan in the report becomes clear.

“We passed an important milestone this quarter delivering positive sales increases in all three of our business segments for the first time in many years,” he shared. “I’m very encouraged to see our Independent Business segment post higher sales compared to last year’s third quarter, and I remain pleased with the continued progress we are making in our retail stores. Save-A-Lot had another good quarter from a sales perspective while also delivering a higher operating margin compared to the second quarter. Overall, the third quarter provided many positives for us to build on during the final quarter of our fiscal year.”

Some highlights from Supervalu's financial report include:

• Net sales of $4.20 billion, a 4.8% increase compared to $4.01 billion in the same quarter of last year.
• A 6.9% increase in identical store sales for Supervalu's Save-A-Lot stores and 8.5% for corporate Save-A-Lot stores.
• A 2.3% increase in identical store sales for Supervalu's Retail Food segment.
• A 2.4% increase in identical store sales for Supervalu's Independent Business segment.
• Gross profit of $593 million, 14.1% of net sales, compared to $569 million from the same period last year.

Analysts polled by Thompson Reuters and quoted in the Wall Street Journal had only forcased Supervalu to earn $0.14/share during Q3 2015. Needless to say, the $0.30/share figure which the retailer actually enjoyed came as a happy surprise.

Congratulations on a strong financial report, Supervalu!

Supervalu