WHOLE FOODS PLANS LARGER SITES

AUSTIN, Texas-On the heels of opening the "wildly successful" 59,000-square-foot store in Time Warner Center in New York's Columbus Circle Feb. 4, seven stores averaging 56,000 square feet have signed leases, said John Mackey, president, chief executive officer and co-founder, in a May 4 conference call with analysts. Forty-six locations are in the works.

The Columbus Circle store is the largest Whole Foods store to date and the largest supermarket in the Big Apple. Stores being built in Los Altos, Calif.; Miami; Atlanta; Chicago; Portland, Ore.; Columbus, Ohio; and Fairfax, Va., join 39 stores planned, totaling 2.2 million square feet in development.

This is an 82 percent increase in square footage under development vs. last year, Mackey added.

Footprints for Whole Foods banner stores range from 30,000 to 59,000 square feet, with most stores in development averaging 46,400 square feet.

The natural food supermarket operator, based here, reported a 24 percent increase in sales to $902 million and record comparable store sales growth of 17.1 percent. Excluding the 18 Southern California stores, comparable store sales growth was 16.4 percent for the 28-week period ended April 11, said Mackey.

Whole Foods has retained some of the customers it attracted during the Southern California grocery strike. "We are very pleased with this level of retention, as we believe it points to the significant growing attraction of our store concept and therefore the customer opportunity that exists in our other markets across the country," said Mackey.

Whole Foods opened two other stores in the second quarter-Louisville, Ky., and Colorado Springs, Colo. It operates 156 natural food supermarkets in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Copyright United Publications, Inc. Aug 2004
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved