Winn-Dixie posts Q1 loss

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. Winn-Dixie is off to a rough start as its first-quarter earnings dropped $8.1 million, according to financial reports.

For the quarter, sales fell 2% to $1.64 billion from $1.68 billion. Winn-Dixie attributed the lower sales to six store closures that occurred in fiscal 2009. Excluding those items, net sales decreased $6.3 million. Same-store sales decreased 1.5% for the quarter, compared with the same period last year.

Adjusted EBITDA was $22.8 million for the first quarter, compared with $27 million in the same period last year.

“The economic climate continued to impede our growth during the quarter and caused our adjusted EBITDA to fall below last year’s levels,” said Winn-Dixie chairman, president and CEO Peter Lynch. “Identical store sales declined due to the absence of storm-related sales that we experienced last year and a shift by consumers towards generic pharmaceuticals. These factors, coupled with deflationary trends in many of the items we sell, led to a decline in basket size for the chain.”

Meanwhile, the company said that by the end of the quarter it had remodelled 170 stores since starting a remodelling program in 2007. It plans to remodel 75 stores during the current fiscal year.