Winn-Dixie reports Q4, fiscal-year results

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. Winn-Dixie closed out the year on a strong note Monday, reporting $7.4 billion in net sales, up 1.2%, for the fiscal year ended June 24, with identical-store sales from continuing operations up 1.2% compared with the prior fiscal year.

During a conference call Tuesday morning, Winn-Dixie chairman, president and CEO Peter Lynch told analysts that the chain’s remodel program, scheduled to be completed across the chain’s entire store base by fiscal year 2013, will be a key driver in the grocer’s success going forward, as will pharmacy.

“Script counts are up,” noted Lynch. “As far as pharmacy plays into our promotional activity, as I have said in the past, pharmacy is a key component to our strategy going forward,” he said. Primarily because pharmacy customers, no matter which channel from which they pick up their prescriptions, are sticky customers. “So we are always trying to make sure that we keep those customers and reach out to them for more business,” Lynch said.

And right now, that means better customer service than the pharmacy down the street. “We’ve done a lot of work in making sure that our pharmacists are really out there taking care of the customer,” he said. “The customer really needs that approach regarding pharmacy and I think we're doing a much, much better job at it here at Winn-Dixie today.”

Lynch updated analysts around Winn-Dixie’s store remodeling program, which Winn-Dixie is tackling on a market-by-market basis. The grocer’s hometown market of Jacksonville, Fla., home to 51 stores across north Florida and south Georgia, was completed in mid-July. “We are currently on track to remodel half of our stores by the end of fiscal year 2010 and to complete substantially all of our stores by 2013,” Lynch said.

At the end of fiscal 2009, the company had completed 170 store remodels, 73 of which were still within their first year of operation. Of the 73 first-year store remodels, 47 are considered by the company to be offensive remodels. For fiscal 2009, those 47 stores had a 10.3% weighted average sales increase compared to the same period in the prior fiscal year, excluding the grand re-opening phase. The sales increase resulted from increases in transaction count and basket size of 5.6% and 4.5%, respectively.