AUSTIN, TX – Whole Foods Market announced its first quarter results this Wednesday, February 8th. The report announced record sales of $4.9 billion, but also significant expenditures, and a redefined strategy for company growth.

“In this increasingly competitive marketplace, we are committed to taking every step necessary to improve comps and deliver higher returns for our shareholders,” said John Mackey, Co-Founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market. “To this end, we are refining our growth strategy, refocusing our efforts on best serving our core customers, and moving faster to fully implement category management. Evolving our purchasing operating model while developing data-rich, customer-centric category management capabilities is critical to our go-forward merchandising, pricing, marketing and affinity strategies."

Highlights of the Q1 report include:

• Total sales of $4.9 billion—up 1.9 percent from a year prior, with comparable store sales down 2.4 percent
• Net income of $95 million (1.9 percent of sales)
• Diluted earnings of $0.30 per share
• Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization of $360 million (7.3 percent of sales)

The company also reported a non-cash charge of $34 million or $0.06 per diluted share related to facility closures and a charge of $13 million ($0.03 per diluted share) associated with Co-CEO Walter Robb’s departure. Excluding these charges, the company had a Q1 net income was $123 million (2.5 percent of sales), diluted earnings per share of $0.39, an EBITDA margin of 7.6 percent, and return on investment capital of 12 percent.

Whole Foods produced $284 milliion in cash flow from operations, invested $245 million in capital expenditures, and returned $43 million in quarterly dividends, ending the quarter with $1.1 billion of total dept and $1.2 billion of total available capital.

View the entire report here.

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Whole Foods