Execution, Service Key to Sales Growth for Supervalu

NEW YORK -- Supervalu expects to boost its like-store sales numbers to levels approaching 3% to 5% -- the levels Safeway and Kroger are achieving -- as it improves execution and service at store level, Jeff Noddle, chairman, president and chief executive officer, said here yesterday at the Bank of America 2007 Consumer Conference. “Albertsons underspent on the consumer against its excellent real estate network, and we see a great upside to affecting identical-store sales through remodeling,” Noddle said. “Both Safeway and Kroger have been investing in their businesses for the past four or five years, and the ID sales they're getting show what can happen when you invest in store operations, and we expect that at some point our numbers should look like their numbers.” Supervalu's ID sales were flat in the second quarter and up 0.6% in the third, with expectations of stronger results in the fourth quarter, Noddle said. “Our goal is to see sequential improvements every quarter,” he explained. “The ID numbers have improved beyond where we thought they would be at this point,” he added, “and while I‘m not going to predict when our numbers will look like those of our competitors, we believe that as we raise the standards of execution, freshness and service at the Albertsons stores, we should see continued growth in those numbers.” -- Elliot Zwiebach